"I will ask them down without Captain Conant," said Rensslaer, and he did, and somehow he and Gay managed to lose them in the park, and as it was some miles in length, and Carlton especially absent-minded that afternoon, this was not difficult.
"Gay looks ill," Carlton said abruptly, revealing the direction his thoughts had taken, when they turned to find their companions vanished.
"Of course," said Lossie, and shrugged her shoulders.
"Why of course?"
He spoke sharply, with an intense feeling of humiliation. Lossie, turning to look at him, thought a little cruelly of her bitter hour; it was his turn now.
"Can't you see that she is utterly wretched," she said, "and thinks it her fault that Chris Hannen is trying to kill himself harder than ever?"
"It's the behaviour of a moral coward," said Carlton sternly; "but he was never half good enough for her."
"Oh," said Lossie, "it isn't what is good enough for us, but what we want, that matters!"
He turned to look at her—eyes, lips, hair, every bit of her, warm with—what? And he was cold, so cold, bleeding in his pride and self-esteem, it was Gay he wanted, but she had gone far to freeze out all the love that was in him....
"And is it George Conant you want so badly?" he said quietly, but with a sensation of stealing warmth in his veins to which they were of late unaccustomed.