"You flatter me by saying so; for you are a man who knows the world, and I was yesterday a school-girl. It would be strange, then, if we did see things in the same light."
"It is difficult to realize that you were yesterday—or ever—a school-girl," said Rathborne, leaning back and looking at her intently from under his dark brows.
"That does not sound very flattering," she replied, with a laugh; and yet in her heart she knew that it was just the kind of flattery she desired.
"I am not trying to flatter you," he replied. "I am telling you exactly how you impress me. And I do not see how, in the name of all that is wonderful, you ever became what you are in that convent from which you come."
A swift shade passed over Marion's face. "You must not blame or credit the convent with what I am," she said. "If I had gone there earlier, I might be a very different person. But my character and disposition were formed when I went there, two years ago; and the influences of the place could not change me, though they often made me feel as if change would be desirable."
"They made you feel a mistake, then," remarked her companion, with emphasis. "Change in you would not be desirable. You are—"
But Marion was not destined to hear just then what she was. Steps and voices came across the hall; Helen's laugh sounded, and the next moment Helen herself appeared in the doorway, followed by Frank Morley, who had apparently succeeded in making his peace.
CHAPTER IV.
When Sunday came, Helen said to her cousin, rather wistfully: "Will you go to church with us to-day, Marion?"