It was the afternoon before Vane's departure for the north, and Evelyn, sitting alone for the time being in Mrs. Nairn's drawing-room, felt disturbed by the thought of it. She sympathised with his object, but she supposed there was a certain risk attached to the journey, and that troubled her. In addition to this there was another point on which she was not altogether pleased. She had twice seen Vane acknowledge a bow from a very pretty girl whose general appearance suggested that she did not belong to Evelyn's own walk of life, and that very morning she had noticed him crossing a street in the young woman's company. Vane, as it happened, had met Kitty Blake by accident and had asked her to accompany him on a visit to Celia. Evelyn did not think she was of a jealous disposition, and jealousy appeared irrational in the case of a man whom she had dismissed as a suitor; but the thing rankled in her mind. While she considered it, Jessie Horsfield entered the room. "I'm here by invitation, to join Vane's other old friends in giving him a good send-off," she explained. Evelyn noticed that Jessie laid some stress upon her acquaintance with Vane, and wondered if she had any motive for doing so. "I suppose you have known him for some time," she said. "Oh, yes," was the careless answer. "My brother was one of the first to take him up when he came to Vancouver." The phrase jarred on Evelyn. It savoured of patronage; besides, she did not like to think that Vane owed anything to the Horsfields. "Though I don't know much about it, I understood they were opposed to each other," she said coldly. "Their business interests don't coincide; but it doesn't follow that they should disagree about anything else. My brother did all he could to dissuade Vane from going on with his search for the timber until the winter was over." "I think it is rather fine of him to persist in it," Evelyn declared. Jessie smiled, though she felt venomous just then. "Yes," she agreed; "one undoubtedly feels that. Besides, the thing's so characteristic of him; the man's impulsively generous and not easily daunted. He possesses many of the rudimentary virtues, as well as some of the corresponding weaknesses, which is very much what one would look for." "What do you mean by that?" Evelyn inquired, suppressing her resentment. Though she was not prepared to pose as Vane's advocate, she was conscious of a growing antagonism against her companion. "It's difficult to explain, and I don't know that the subject's worth discussing," said Jessie. "However, what I think I meant was this--Vane's of a type that's not uncommon in the West, and it's a type one finds interesting. He's forcibly elementary, which is the only way I can express it; the restraints the rest of us submit to don't bind him; he breaks through them."