'Yes.'
'How exceedingly funny.'
'Why?'
'Because on that same morning I finally accepted Sir Carnaby. By the way,' she added, with a glance that was not a pleasant one, 'I heard that your old admirer, Trevor Chute, once of the Guards, was in town again.'
'Indeed.'
'Yes; perhaps that accounts for poor Harvey's disappointment.'
'Think so if you choose,' replied Clare, haughtily, as she turned away to conceal how her soft cheek coloured with the excess of her annoyance.
By this time Vane, after being entangled by innumerable trains, had made his way to the side of Ida.
Jerry Vane was popular in society, and could have had many a girl for the asking. Clare and Ida, too, had often wished—for he was still the dearest of their friends—that he should marry; but they had never suggested it to him, for under the circumstances it would have seemed bad taste, and though he had but one thought—Ida, and Ida only—Jerry Vane went everywhere, and was deemed the gayest of the gay; and now, when their eyes met, there was a kind, sad smile in hers—a smile of the olden time—that took a load off his heart, and still lighter did it grow when, rising, she took his arm—as a widow she could do so now, and said:
'Take me to a cool place; the heat here is stifling, especially in this dark dress; there is a cool seat just within the conservatory door. Thanks, that will do.'