"Humph, I should think not! He was ashamed to confess to his mother that he was running after another girl, leaving his betrothed at home to fret her heart out!" sneered Jewel, so bitterly that Io Meredith exclaimed, resentfully:
"Jewel, I think you ought to be ashamed to accuse my brother of such disgraceful conduct. I would have you understand that he is a gentleman, not a dastard!"
"Let me alone, Io Meredith! I shall say what I like about your brother! He is behaving shamefully! Do you think I did not know that he was madly in love with Azalia Brooke? He showed it so plainly that every one noticed it. You can not deny that!"
No one spoke, for Jewel's shot told. It was quite true that Laurie Meredith had betrayed so much interest in the lovely English girl as to excite comment. His mother had remonstrated with him gently but decidedly.
"I can not help myself. It is fate," he had answered, in such a despairing voice, and with such a miserable look that she had not the heart to pursue the subject further, although quite sure that his interest in Azalia Brooke was so strong as to be a wrong to Jewel Fielding.
"It will wear off, this sudden fancy, when sweet Azalia is gone," she thought to herself; and it was with a feeling of relief that she heard of the betrothal of Azalia and Lord Clive.
She asked herself anxiously now if it could be true, as Jewel suspected, that her son had followed Azalia Brooke to Washington. Her heart said no, for although he had been weak enough to lose his head over her despite his engagement to another, she felt assured that his passion had been hopeless from first to last, and that he had struggled against it in vain.
She could not help feeling sorry for her son and for the dark-eyed girl who loved him with such jealous passion.
With it all there was mixed a little self-reproach, for had she not pitied Jewel so much that she had persuaded her son to make an effort to return the girl's affection?