"I believe now that I loved you from the first day. I know that I kept thinking about you and considering everything from the point of view I fancied you would take. You"—with sudden anxiety—"you do not regret coming with me, Elsie? What were you thinking of, just now, when your eyes darkened? You looked——"
"Of Holly," she answered simply. "I hope his new nurse will play with him, and cuddle him."
"The baby?" Her fidelity touched him with a warm sense of promise for his own future. "Yes, I have taken you from him. But, we left him his father."
The allusion brought a constraint. The words spoken, Adriance flushed like a woman and turned his ashamed eyes away from the girl.
"You did not take me from Holly," Elsie hurriedly corrected. "Mrs. Masterson discharged me, night before last. I was to go to-day, anyhow."
"You? Why?"
She hesitated.
"She came to the nursery door while you were speaking to me of telling Holly the story of Maît' Raoul Galvez. You know, Holly is too much a baby to hear stories, so she understood that you meant—other things. And it seems that once you had spoken to her of that story. She—made connections. She accused me of—of flirting with her guests; of being—an improper person."
"Elsie!"
"It is all over. It does not matter, now. But that was how I knew she did not send you away. Of course she said nothing to tell me; she is too clever. But, you see I knew so much already; and when I saw she was jealous even of your speaking to me——!"