“I can come in about three weeks, I suppose,” I said. “I shall be very glad to. We hope to move to Eastminster on Monday or Tuesday. I want to see my father again and to help them to settle down there. Afterwards I shall be quite free.” She nodded, and looked at me keenly for a moment or two. “You are looking tired and worried,” she said, sympathetically. “Has anything fresh happened?” “Nothing.” She waited for a moment, but she did not pursue the subject. Still, I fancied that she was disappointed that I did not offer her my confidence. “Mr. Bruce Deville has just been here, and Miss Berdenstein,” she remarked. I nodded. “I saw them come through the plantation,” I remarked. “I have not seen Miss Berdenstein for several days. Is she quite well?” She looked at me, and commenced to sort some papers. “Oh, yes, she is well enough. Bruce Deville rather puzzles me. He is in a very odd mood. I have never seen him more attentive to any one than he is to that girl, and yet all the time there was a sort of brutal cynicism about his behavior, and when I asked him to stay and talk to me he would not. I wonder have you----” She looked up into my face and stopped short. There was a little pause. “Won’t you tell me about it?” she said, wistfully. “Not unless you like, of course.” “There is nothing much to tell,” I answered, controlling my voice with a desperate effort. “Mr. Deville asked me something. I was obliged to say no. He is consoling himself admirably.” She sighed, and looked at me thoughtfully. That note of bitterness in my tone had betrayed me. “I am sorry,” she said. “Bruce Deville is not exactly a woman’s man, and he has many faults, but he is a fine fellow. He is a world too good anyhow to throw himself away upon that miserable chit of a girl.” That was exactly my own idea. I did not tell her so, however. “She is very rich,” I remarked. “She can free his estates and put him in his right position again.” “That is only a trifle,” she declared. “Besides, he is not so poor as some people think. He could live differently now, only he is afraid that he would have to entertain and be entertained. He makes his poverty an excuse for a great many things, but as a matter of fact he is not nearly so embarrassed as people believe. The truth is he detests society.” “I do not blame him,” I answered. “Society is detestable.” “At any rate, I cannot bring myself to believe that he is thinking seriously about that girl,” she continued, anxiously. “I should hate to think so!” “Men are enigmas,” I remarked. “It is precisely the unexpected which one has always to expect from them.” “That is what they say about us,” she said. I nodded. “Don’t you think that most of the things that men say of women are more true about themselves? It seems so to me, at any rate.” She rose up suddenly, and came and stood over me. She held out her hands, and I gave her mine. My eyes were dim. It was strange to me to find any one who understood.