Maria looked at him timidly, and he bent his head with a fond smile. "I shall want somebody to keep house for me at the bank, you know, Maria." She coloured even to tears. Mr. George was proceeding to erase them after his own gallant fashion, when he was summarily brought-to by the entrance of Grace Hastings. There was certainly no love lost between them. Grace did not like George, George did not like Grace. She took her seat demurely in her mother's chair of state, with every apparent intention of sitting out his visit. So George cut it short. "What did he come for?" Grace asked of Maria, when the servant had showed him out. "He came to call." "You appeared to be in very close conversation when I came into the room," pursued Grace, searching Maria with her keen eyes. "May I ask its purport?" "Its purport was nothing wrong," said Maria, her cheeks deepening under the inspection. "You question me, Grace, as if I were a child, and you possessed a right over me." "Well," said Grace equably. "What was he talking of?" Yielding, timid, sensitive Maria was one of the last to resist this sort of importunity. "We had been talking of the Verralls not including me in the invitation. George said it was a slight." "As of course it was," assented Grace. "And, for that fact alone, I am glad mamma sent them a refusal. It was Charlotte Pain's doings. She does not care that you should be brought too much into contact with George Godolphin, lest her chance should be perilled. Now, Maria, don't pretend to look at me in that incredulous manner! You know as well as I do that George has a stupid liking for you; or, at least, acts as though he had. And that naturally is not pleasant to Charlotte Pain." Maria knew well that Grace had divined the true cause for the slight. She stood for a few minutes looking silent and humble: an intimation, even from Grace, that George "liked her," jarred upon her refined sensitiveness, when openly alluded to. But that feeling was almost lost in the dull pain which the hint touching Charlotte had called up. "Charlotte Pain is nothing to George Godolphin," she resentfully said. "Charlotte Pain _is_," responded Grace. "And if your eyes are not yet opened to it, they ought to be. She is to be his wife." "Oh no, she is not," hastily said Maria. "Maria, I tell you that she is. I know it." Now Grace Hastings rarely made an assertion unless she had good grounds for it. Maria knew that. And the dull pain at her heart grew and grew, until it was beating with a sharp agony. She appeared impassive enough, looking down at her thin gold chain, which her fingers were unconsciously wreathing into knots. "You cannot know it, Grace." "I tell you I do. Mind you, I don't say that they will inevitably be married; only, that they contemplate being so at present. Charlotte does well not to make too sure of him! George Godolphin may see half a dozen yet whom he will prefer to Charlotte Pain, in his roving, butterfly nature."