Courtland stopped, bewildered. Then he laughed indulgently. "She didn't have any use for a chaperon, child," he said, as if he were a great deal older than she. "She came here with her little brother to earn their living." "Oh, she _had_ a brother, then!" sighed Gila with evident relief. It occurred to Courtland to be a bit pleased that Gila was so particular about the conventionalities. He had heard it rumored more than once that her own conduct overstepped the most lenient of rules. That must have been a mistake. It was a relief to know it from her own lips. But he explained, gently: "The little brother was killed on Monday night," he said, gravely. "Just run down in cold blood by a passing automobile." "How perfectly dreadful!" shuddered Gila, shrinking back into the depths of the chair. "But you know you mustn't believe a story like that! Poor people are always getting up such tales about rich people's automobiles. It isn't true at all. No chauffeur would do a thing like that! The children just run out and get in the way of the cars to tantalize the drivers. I've seen them myself. Why, our chauffeur has been arrested three or four times and charged with running over children and dogs, when it wasn't his fault at all; the people were just trying to get some money out of us! I don't suppose the little child was run over. It was probably his own fault." "Yes, he was run over," said Courtland, gently. "I saw it myself! I was standing on the curbstone when the boy--he was a beautiful little fellow with long golden curls--rushed out to meet his sister, calling out to her, and the automobile came whirring by without a sign of a horn, and crushed him down just like a broken lily. He never lifted his head nor made a motion again, and the automobile never even slowed up to see--just shot ahead and was gone." Gila was still for a minute. She had no words to meet a situation like this. "Oh, well," she said, "I suppose he is better off, and the girl is, too. How could she take care of a child in the city alone, and do any work? Besides, children are an awful torment, and very likely he would have turned out bad. Boys usually do. What did you want me to do for her? Get her a position as a maid?" There was something almost flippant in her tone. Strange that Courtland did not recognize it. But the firelight, the white gown, the pure profile, the down-drooped lashes had done for him once more what the red light had done before--taken him out of his normal senses and made him see a Gila that was not really there: soft, sweet, tender, womanly. The words, though they did not satisfy him, merely meant that she had not yet understood what he wanted, and was striving hard to find out. "No," he said, gently. "I want you to go and see her. She is sick and in the hospital. She needs a friend, a real girl friend, such as you could be if you would."