He turned toward her, and she saw that his friendly brows were beetling. “Is it necessary to speak of him more respectfully? The fact is, I don’t fancy him--never did.” “You knew him before, then?” She felt the blood creeping to her forehead, and reached out for a painted hand-screen that she might seem to hold between her eyes and the fire. Landers reflected. “Oh, yes. I’ve run across him now and then. I rather fancy he’s been mixed up in this too; stirring the brew with the others. That’s my impression.” “Yes.--I wonder why,” said Kate suddenly. Landers smiled a little, though his brows continued to jut. “To please Anne, perhaps.” “Anne--_Anne_?” The name, after she had uttered it, continued to ring on between them, and she leaned back, pressing the screen against her closed lids. “Why?” she managed to question. “Well--a good many people have wanted to please Anne, first and last. I simply conjectured that Fenno might be among them.” “Oh, no; I’m sure you’re quite wrong. I wonder--.” She hesitated, and then went on with a rush: “The fact is, I wonder you haven’t noticed that he and Lilla--” Landers sat up and flung his cigar-end into the embers. “Fenno and Lilla? By Jove--you might be right. I hadn’t thought of it--” “Well, I have; I’ve met them together; when they didn’t expect to be met--.” She hurried it out with a kind of violence. Her heart was beating to suffocation; she had to utter her suspicion, to give it life and substance. “The idea sheds floods of light--no doubt of that. Poor Maclew! I’m beginning to be sorry for him. But I think the lot of them are capable of taking pretty good care of themselves. On the whole,” Landers added with a sudden sigh of relief, “I’m jolly glad it’s Lilla--if it’s anybody.” “I _know_ it’s Lilla.” Kate spoke with a passionate emphasis. She had to prove to some one that Chris was Lilla’s lover in order to believe it herself, and she had to believe it herself in order to dispel the dreadful supposition raised by Landers’s words. She found herself, now, able to smile away his suggestion quite easily, to understand that he had meant it only as a random joke. People in America were always making jokes of that kind, juvenile jokes about flirtations and engagements; they were the staple topic of the comic papers. But the shock of finding herself for a second over that abyss sent her stumbling back half-dazed to the safe footing of reality. If she were going to let her imagination run away at any chance word, what peace would there ever be for her? The next day Nollie Tresselton reappeared, smiling and fresh, like a sick-nurse whose patient has “turned the corner”. With Lilla off her hands her keen boyish face had lost its expression of premature vigilance, and she looked positively rejuvenated. She was more outspoken than Landers.