"You can't imagine how delightful it is to be here again. I was absolutely homesick for the manor while I was away."
"Indeed? How unhappy you must have been."
"I was," he replied gravely, observing for the first time the girl's air of disdain, and wondering at the cause thereof, "and I shall have a new cause for sorrow if you look at me as you are now doing."
Jean's levity was somewhat forced as she replied:
"I am very sorry you are not pleased. I do not find it easy to change my expression."
"No?" He bent a very direct and earnest gaze upon her. "Why, Miss Jean," he said softly, "I thought we were friends when I went away; and only to-night you seemed glad at my return."
The last spark of resentment died out of Jean's heart. Her distrust of him seemed suddenly both groundless and foolish. Ashamed and contrite, she was about to speak, when Miss Stuart's suave voice broke in upon them:
"Mr. Farr, have you heard anything of the Saunders since you left Washington?"
Farr had no alternative but to reply to so direct a question, and Jean, although annoyed at the unwelcome interruption, waited patiently, confident that he would seize upon the first opportunity to resume his conversation with her. As the moments passed, however, and his undivided attention was still given to Miss Stuart, she was first hurt, and then bitterly angry. A lump rose in her throat, and for one miserable moment she thought she was going to cry; then her pride came to her rescue, and under an almost reckless gayety of speech and manner she hid her momentary weakness. It was unjust and unreasonable to blame Farr, but Jean was in no frame of mind for logical argument. He had turned away from her to speak to Miss Stuart, and although she had given him ample time to take up the broken thread of their discourse, he had failed to do so. As she talked on excitedly with Dudley, her cheeks burning, her eyes dark and restless, she was mentally comparing herself with Miss Stuart, whom she had already almost unconsciously begun to regard as her rival. She had always known that Helen's friend was beautiful, but to-night her newly awakened jealousy caused her to lay great stress on the brilliancy and fascination of their guest. She recalled, with curious distinctness, the image of herself which the mirror had shown her while she awaited Farr's coming, and her heart contracted as she thought how colorless she must appear in contrast with Miss Stuart's rich and vivid beauty.
When at length Farr was once more at liberty to address her, she had worked herself up to such a pitch of miserable jealousy that she would have none of him, and took an almost savage delight in thwarting his every attempt at speech with her. He was too reserved to let her see how deeply he was wounded by her flippancy and incivility, and, in his apparent indifference, Jean found an added proof of his disloyalty and of her own unpardonable folly. She had almost come to the end of her courage, when Helen rose, giving the signal to the ladies to withdraw.