Berenice greeted him on his appearance in the library, whither he descended rather shakily. She held in her hand a telegram when he entered under the escort of Mehitabel, and her cheeks were flushed. Instantly into his mind came the feeling that her color was connected with the message which the yellow paper brought, and he became jealous in a flash. There was no possible reason why he should scent a rival in the mere presence in his lady's hand of a telegram, unless there were an intangible shade of self-consciousness in her manner. He had come downstairs eager to see her and to assure himself that she was really no worse for the accident, but the sight of the paper instantly changed his mood. In crossing the half-dozen steps from the door to the fire Maurice shifted from frank eagerness to aggrieved distrust. He said good-morning as he entered in the tone of a lover; he spoke as he reached the hearth with the formality of an acquaintance. He was too keenly alive to the change in his feelings not to know that he showed it. He endeavored to hide his perturbation under an appearance of simple politeness, but he was sure that she watched him and that she was puzzled. "Well," she said, as she arranged a cushion in the big easy-chair beside the crackling wood fire, "you have the genuine scarred veteran air." "Please don't bother to wait on me, Miss Morison," he answered, trying to speak naturally, and painfully aware that he did not succeed. "I'm all right, except for the scratch on my arm." "Scratch, indeed," she returned with a smile which almost disarmed him. "How many stitches did the doctor have to put in?" "'Bout enough for a week's mending," interpolated Mehitabel, putting him into the chair with an air of authority, and preparing to retire. "There, now stay there till you want to go upstairs again, and then send for me." "Indeed," he protested, laughing, "I am not helpless. You can't make a baby of me just for a disabled arm." "I suppose," Berenice said, "that I ought to be willing to say that I had rather the wound were in my back, where it would have been but for you; only as a matter of fact I shouldn't be telling the truth. I am sorry for you, Mr. Wynne; but I can't help being glad for myself." She seemed to be setting herself to win him from his ill-humor, and he had to look into the fire away from her lips and eyes to prevent himself from yielding. He fortified his resistance, which he felt to be weakening, by the reflection that it was his duty not to be carried away by her charm. He called upon his religious scruples to aid him in holding to his passion-born jealousy.