“Why don’t you come, too?” sprang to Louie’s lips, but she repressed it as something unmaidenly; but her eyes had in them a wistful look as she raised them to Fred, who did not quite understand the expression, or know why he stood outside, watching the little figure in the white dress and cloak until it disappeared among the trees in the avenue. CHAPTER X ON THE GREY PIAZZA When Herbert left the house for that moonlight walk with Louie, he had no idea of doing what he finally did do. He felt elated that he had outwitted Fred, who he was sure had intended seeing Louie home, in the carriage, most likely, if he did say the walk was what one needed after so much heat and excitement. He might have added dancing, too, and such dancing—more like a bear than a man, Herbert thought, and wondered how Louie liked it. She was very silent, while he, too, did not care to talk much at first. He was satisfied to have Louie to himself, away from all the cads who had dangled after her, and, more than all, away from Fred, who, he believed, had shown her more attention than he had shown in his life to all the girls he had known. What if he should really fall in love with her, and propose? She would of course accept him. No girl in her right mind would refuse Fred Lansing. The thought was like wormwood, and he found himself growing more and more jealous of Fred, who was going to call on Louie that afternoon, and his jealousy increased her value tenfold. He had always liked her better than any girl he knew. In fact, she was the only girl he had ever cared for at all. But, then, his knowledge of girls was rather limited. Those from the city who had been at the party had about them a different air from Louie, it was true, but were not half as pretty and winsome, nor had the whole of them received as much attention as she had, especially from Fred—confound him! He was never known to notice a girl before, or scarcely look at one, and he would have appropriated Louie entirely if he had not interfered and asserted his rights. These and similar thoughts ran swiftly through Herbert’s mind. Then they took another turn. There was some of his father’s nature in him, and he began to wish she was not Mr. Grey’s daughter. True, neither he nor anyone knew anything against Mr. Grey, but his father disliked him and suspected him, and looked down upon him. He had once been their tenant in White’s Row, where Nancy Sharp lived, and he had heard that Mrs. Grey had done plain sewing for his mother, and that Louie had helped her. All this was pretty bad, and Herbert felt himself grow hot as he thought of taking for his wife a girl who had lived in White’s Row and whose mother had sewed for his mother.