“Still, I passed you in the street but little more than an hour ago,” was his grave answer.
The color fluttered unsteadily over her face.
“Indeed? I did not see you.”
“I presume not. You were occupied.”
“Was I? Oh, dear, yes—I remember. I happened to meet Mr. Houston. He was telling me of—”
She caught the force of those large black eyes bent upon her, and broke off, while a blush rose visibly from the crests of foamy hair on her neck, up to her forehead.
“Ellen, why will you associate with that bad man?”
Claude asked the question in a grave, steady voice, which would have warned a wiser person not to trifle with the subject. But Ellen possessed the coquetry and craft of a small character—no real wisdom.
“Bad man! Everybody that I know of calls him a gentleman, except you.”
“You can not be a judge where a person like this is concerned. No refined woman could have the power to understand him.”