[CHAPTER XL.]
Irene sat still where her angry lover had left her, lost in a trance-like maze of troubled thought. With her small, white hands folded in her lap, and her dreamy blue eyes fixed on vacancy, she remained there, statue-like and unheeding, and time, albeit its wings were clogged with sorrow, flew past unnoted, until the noon-day sun rode high in the heavens.
A step, a voice, startled her from her dreamy revery.
"Ah, Miss Berlin, you see I have discovered your charming retreat," said Guy Kenmore. "Will you permit me to share it?"
The swift color flew to her brow, as she looked up into the handsome face, with the slightly wistful smile about the firm lips.
"This spot is free to all Mr. Stuart's guests," she replied, coldly. "I have no right to forbid you to come here."
"Would you, if you had?" he asked, throwing himself down in the grass at her feet, and lifting to her face his slightly quizzical brown eyes.
"Why should I?" she retorted, gazing down into his face with an air of the most serene indifference.
"Why, indeed?" he asked himself, with sudden bitterness. "Serene, in her fancied incognito, she cares not whether I go or stay. I am no more to her than the earth beneath her feet," and aloud, he answered calmly as he could speak, and in a slight tone of banter: