But this afternoon the dislike, which had been fading day by day along with those feelings in another which had caused it, was revived in its old strength upon the matter of the kiss. Alone in her own room the thought made her turn crimson with vexation, and she stamped the floor with annoyance. He had made certain overtures to her--slender and meaningless in all probability. Still, if he could believe her capable after such looks and words as he had used--if after these he thought her capable of this, then indeed, were there no abyss at all, he could be nothing to her. Oh, it was too bad, too intolerable! She would never forgive him. How indeed could she be anything to him, if she could do such a thing, as dreadful, as unmaidenly to her as to the proudest beauty among his London friends. She told herself again that he was insufferable; and determined to slap Roy well, upon the first opportunity, if that mistaken little pearl of price would persist in favoring the stranger's sofa. Until this was cleared up she felt her position the very worst in the world, and yet would not for a fortune give him an opportunity of freeing her from it. The very fact that he addressed her with, as it seemed, a greater show of respect, chafed her. Agnes, with a precocious cleverness, a penetration quite her own, kept herself and her dog, Jack o' Pack _alias_ Johnny Sprawn, out of her sister's way, and teased her only before company. But at last Maitland caught Miss Joan unprotected. "I hope that these are the right size, Miss Joan--they are six and a quarter," he said boldly, yet with, for a person of his disposition and breeding, a strange amount of shamefacedness; producing at the same time a pair of gloves, Courvoisier's best, many-buttoned, fit for a goddess. "I beg your pardon?" she said, breathing quickly. But she guessed what he meant. "Let me get out of your debt." "Out of my debt, Mr. Maitland?" taking the gloves mechanically. "Please. Did you think I had forgotten? I should find it hard to do that," he continued, encouraged and relieved by having got rid of the gloves, and inattentive at the moment to her face. Yet she looked long at him searchingly. "I have found it hard to understand you," she said at last, with repressed anger in voice and eye; "very hard, Mr. Maitland; but I think I do so now. Do you believe that it was I who kissed you when you were asleep on Wednesday afternoon? Can you think so? You force me to presume it is so. Your estimate of my modesty and of your own deserts must differ considerably. I had not the honor. Your gloves"--and she dropped them upon the floor as if the touch contaminated her, the act humiliating the young gentleman at least as much as her words--"you had better give to Agnes, if you wish to observe a silly custom. They are due to her, not to me. I thank you, Mr. Maitland, for having compelled me to give this pleasant explanation."