I gave him a brief account of the fiasco in Boston, venturing to betray Hugh's confidence for the sake of some possible advantage. Mr. Strangways only shrugged his shoulders. "Of course," he said. "What could you expect?" I was sure he was looking down on me with the expression Mrs. Rossiter had detected, though I didn't dare to lift an eye to catch him in the act. "You really mean to marry him?" "Mean to marry him is not the term," I answered, with the decision which I felt the situation called for. "I mean to marry him only--on conditions." "Oh, on conditions! What kind of conditions?" I named them to him as I had named them to others. First that Hugh should become independent. He repeated his short, hard laugh. "I don't believe you had better bank on that." "Perhaps not," I admitted. "But I've another string to my bow. His family may come and ask me." He almost shouted. "Never!" It was the tone they all took, and which especially enraged me. I kept my voice steady, however, as I said, "That remains to be seen." "It doesn't remain to be seen, because I can tell you now that they won't." "And I can tell you now that they will," I said, with an assurance that, on the surface at least, was quite as strong as his own. He laughed again, more shortly, more hardly. "Oh, well!" The laugh ended in a kind of sigh. I noted the sigh as I noted the laugh, and their relation to each other. Both reached me, touching something within me that had never yet been stirred. Physically it was like the prick of the spur to a spirited animal, it sent me bounding up the steps. I was off as from a danger; and though I would have given much to see the expression with which he stood gazing after me, I would not permit myself so much as to glance back. CHAPTER XI The steps by which I came to be Stacy Grainger's librarian could easily be traced, though to do so with much detail would be tedious. After Hugh's departure for New York my position with Mrs. Rossiter soon became untenable. The reports that reached Newport of the young man's doings in the city were not merely galling to the family pride, but maddening to his father's sense of pre-eminence. Hugh was actually going from door to door, as you might say, in Wall Street and Broad Street, only to be turned away. "He's making the most awful fool of himself," Mrs. Rossiter informed me one morning, "and papa's growing furious. Jim writes that every one is laughing at him, and, of course, they know it's all about some girl."