He did not wink at Janet--oh, no! that would have been vulgarity itself--the sort of communication which takes place between the footman in a play and the chamber-maid who is in his confidence. Mr. Charles Meredith’s manners were irreproachable, and vulgarity in that kind of way impossible to him. But he did catch Janet’s attention with a corner of his eye, as it were, which expressed something a little different from the open look which was bent on Mrs. Harwood--or, rather, on Gussy, at whom he glanced as he spoke. And then he entered into certain details. Mrs. Harwood, though she was disabled and incapable of getting out of her chair, was an excellent woman of business, and she entered into the particulars of his narrative with great interest. She said at the end, with a satisfied nod of her head, “Well, Charley, I hope we may now feel that you are beginning to catch the rising tide.” “I hope so, too,” said the young man. And then it seemed to dawn upon him that these agreeable auguries might lead him too far. “A little time will tell,” he said, “whether it’s a real beginning or only a flash in the pan. I am afraid to calculate upon anything too soon. In three months or so, if all goes on well----” Janet asked herself, with a keenness of inquiry which took her by surprise, what, oh, what did he mean by three months? Was that said for Gussy? Was it said for anyone else? Did he, by any possibility, think that _she_ cared--that it pleased her to know that he was deceiving Mrs. Harwood and her daughter? She felt very angry at the whole matter, which she thought she saw through so completely, but which, after all, she did not in the least see through. Janet thought that for some reason or other this young man was “amusing himself,” according to the ordinary jargon, with Miss Harwood’s too-little concealed devotion, that he secretly made fun of the woman who loved him, and was preparing, when the time came, a disenchantment for her and revelation of his own sentiments, which would probably break Gussy’s heart. It can scarcely be said that Janet felt those sentiments of moral indignation which such a deliberate treachery ought to have called forth. She was still so far in the kitten stage that it half amused her to see Mr. Meredith “taking in” Miss Harwood. It amused her to think that probably he had been having some wild party of his young men friends (a party of young men always seems wild, riotous, full of inconceivable frolic and enjoyment to a girl’s fancy) in his chambers, on some of those evenings which he so demurely represented to the old lady as full of business. She could not help an inclination to laugh at that. It is the kind of deceit which has always been laughed at from the beginning of time. But she felt angry about the three months. What did he mean by three months? Was it for Gussy to lull her suspicions? Was it for--anyone else? Janet felt as if she were being made a party to some unkind scheme which had not merely