"I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't."
"Then, now you will do something for me," says Miss Beresford, promptly.
"Anything," with enthusiasm.
"Then to-morrow you are to come here without the roses I heard you promising Miss Fitzgerald this afternoon."
Her tone is quite composed, but two little brilliant flecks of color have risen hurriedly and are now flaunting themselves on either pretty cheek. She is evidently very seriously in earnest.
"She asked me for them: she will think it so ungenerous, so rude," says Desmond.
"Not ungenerous. She will never think you that, or rude either," says Monica, gauging the truth to a nicety. "Careless if you will, but no more; and—I want you to seem careless where she is concerned."
"But why, my dearest?"
"Because I don't like her; she always treats me as though I were some insignificant little girl still in short petticoats," says Miss Beresford, with rising indignation. "And because—because, too——"
She pauses in some confusion.