"He shall not sit beside you at dinner; so much I can guarantee," said Eric. And though Winifred thanked him laughingly, as if all that had been said was a joke, she did not entirely disagree with Celia's first observation when they found themselves alone in their own room. "Winifred," said Celia, "I think Mr Eric Balderson was _really_ rather angry at your tone about Lennox. I heard it in his voice, though he has that dry way of speaking that makes it difficult to know whether he is in fun or earnest." She was standing in front of the fire--a brightly glowing one--in the large room, which, with a dressing-room out of it, the two girls shared together. And as she spoke she turned round slowly, and looked at her sister half timidly. "Well, and what if he were?" said Winifred. "After all, Lennox is our cousin, not his. He does not need to take up the cudgels in the poor dear's defence. It would be very impertinent." "He would not mean it that way," said Celia, "and though you are so much cleverer and wiser than I, you know, Winifred, onlookers sometimes see the most. Don't you think, considering how things are with Lennox, it would be better always to speak very nicely of him? After all, his caring for you is no crime--you need not _despise_ him for it." "Oh, bother!" said Winifred, throwing herself back into a comfortable chintz-covered arm-chair, "perhaps it would be better. But I hate beating about the bush and always thinking such a lot about what to say and not to say. I do like to be natural. However, I'll be more careful. But I am so tired of Lennox and all that dull, humdrum country life that Mrs Balderson calls restful and delightful. And so are you, Celia; we are at one on these subjects." "Of course we are," said the younger girl, "though my feeling is not that I want to leave home, but simply to have--you know what--my chance, my test, which I _cannot_ have at home. But you are very good, dear Winifred, not to think _me_ impertinent for warning you." For a moment or two there was silence. Then said Winifred, raising herself, "I must write to mamma." A shadow of disappointment flitted across Celia's face, but there was no trace of it in her voice. "To mamma?" she said. "Oh, then, I will write to Louise." "Of course," said Winifred, majestically. "It would never do for _me_ not to write first to mamma. Indeed, I don't see that there is any hurry for your writing at all." She got out her paper and pens as she spoke. Then with the queer mixture of candid self-deprecation which existed in her, side by side with unusual self-assertion, she startled Celia by an unexpected speech. "About what you were saying of Lennox just now, Celia," she began, her fingers toying idly with the pen she had already dipped into the ink, "do you know, at the bottom of my heart, I don't think I believe that he _does_ care for me?" Celia gasped.