"Whose fault was it that the engagement came to nought?" asked Gladys. "Did she care much for him?"
"A great deal more than he deserved," said Aldyth, her tones, in spite of herself, expressing indignation.
"Girls are sillies," said Gladys, emphatically. "There never yet was a man worth breaking one's heart for. But who is this one coming towards us, Aldyth? He looks rather nice."
Aldyth had already recognized the individual in question, and her heart had given a leap at the sight of him; but she answered quietly enough—
"That is Mr. Glynne. He was one of the masters at the Grammar School; but he is about to leave the town."
"What a pity! I like the look of him," said Gladys. "He is not good-looking, but he has the air of a gentleman."
"He is a gentleman," Aldyth could not help saying.
She was drawing in her horse before the door of the library when he came in sight round a turn in the street. It would have been easy for him, as they were about to alight, to step across the street to speak to Aldyth; but the idea did not appear to occur to him. He lifted his hat courteously, and passed on along the opposite pavement.
A keen, cruel pain seized upon Aldyth. She hardly heard the remarks Gladys was making, or knew how she transacted the business that took her into the shop. One thought possessed her—the thought that John Glynne had only come for a day or two, and that he would go away without her having exchanged a word with him. And yet he could have spoken to her then; and he would not take the trouble to cross the road that he might do so! It was most mortifying to be treated so by one whom she had counted a friend.
With a sense of intolerable shame, Aldyth took herself to task for feeling more interest in John Glynne than he apparently felt in her. But though she was ashamed of it, the feeling was not to be crushed in a moment. Thoughts full of pain and disappointment occupied her mind as they drove home, making it difficult for her to pay proper attention to what Gladys was saying.