“Yet you do not love him.”

“Have I said I do not?”

“No, but I know it. I know one cannot love two men at the same time.”

“Lettice, you presume.”

“Do I? I don’t mean to; but—Ah well, Rhoda, we are but girls, and we are on the lookout for signs that escape others whose thoughts are not on romances.”

“And you think you have read signs in me? Am I such a telltale, then?”

“Far from it. You are unusually wary. But Rhoda, do you know that Jamie leaves us to-day?”

The color mounted slowly to Rhoda’s face, tingeing even her ears with red.

Lettice leaned over and said mockingly, as she possessed herself of Rhoda’s hand, “A sign, Rhoda! A sign! What does that blush mean?”

Rhoda bit her lip, but did not raise her eyes.