"I would have believed it of any girl in the world rather than of her," says her hostess, to another person, when these two happen to be alone in the saloon below. "I don’t believe it yet. It is impossible. Of course a girl who is left as penniless as she is might be pardoned for looking round and being friendly with rich people who are well inclined towards her; but I don’t believe—I say it is impossible—that she should have thrown Angus over just because she saw a chance of marrying the Laird’s nephew. Why, there never was a girl we have ever known so independent as she is!—not any one half as proud and as fearless. She looks upon going to London and earning her own living as nothing at all! She is the very last girl in the world to speculate on making a good match—she has too much pride—she would not speak another word to Howard Smith if such a monstrous thing were suggested to her." "Very well," says the meek listener. The possibility was not of his suggesting, assuredly: he knows better. Then the Admiral-in-chief of the _White Dove_ sits silent and puzzled for a time. "And yet her treatment of poor Angus is most unfair. He is deeply hurt by it—he told me so this morning——" "If he is so fearfully sensitive that he cannot go yachting and enjoy his holiday because a girl does not pay him attention——" "Why, what do you suppose he came back here for?" she says, warmly. "To go sailing in the _White Dove_? No; not if twenty _White Doves_ were waiting for him! He knows too well the value of his time to stay away so long from London if it were merely to take the tiller of a yacht. He came back here, at great personal sacrifice, because Mary was on board." "Has he told you so?" "He has not; but one has eyes." "Then suppose she has changed her mind: how can you help it?" She says nothing for a second. She is preparing the table for Master Fred: perhaps she tosses the novels on to the couch with an impatience they do not at all deserve. But at length she says— "Well; I never thought Mary would have been so fickle as to go chopping and changing about within the course of a few weeks. However, I won’t accuse her of being mercenary; I will not believe that. Howard Smith is a most gentlemanly young man—good-looking, too, and pleasant tempered. I can imagine any girl liking him." Here a volume of poems is pitched on to the top of the draught-board, as if it had done her some personal injury. "And in any case she might be more civil to one who is a very old friend of ours," she adds. Further discourse on this matter is impossible; for our Freidrich d’or comes in to prepare for luncheon. But why the charge of incivility? When we are once more assembled together, the girl is quite the reverse of uncivil towards him. She shows him—when she is forced to speak to him—an almost painful courtesy; and she turns her eyes down, as if she were afraid to speak to him. This is no flaunting coquette, proud of her wilful caprice.