"She's a strange girl," Mr. Rayne answered pensively, "she does not take fancies easily, she has treated open admirers with such provoking coldness since she has 'come out' that I wonder at her having a friend left."
"That is what weakens my hope," said Vivian Standish, in a splendid mockery of despair. "I fear that she might meet my proposal with the same indifference, and thus make my life a miserable blank."
The color rushed to Guy's face, and then faded as suddenly away. "Infernal villain!" he muttered, and it was only by an extraordinary effort he conquered the impulse to spring upon the person of this vile adventurer, and strangle him then and there. What providential influence had brought him back to Ottawa at such a crisis, he asked himself.
"Well," he heard his uncle say distractedly, "I have not broached the subject to her yet. She is a strange disposition and cannot be treated like others of her age and sex. I think the better plan would be, for you to deserve her love first, and from what we have all seen of you, I reckon that will not be the hardest of tasks. This is September—if you wish, after three months longer, I will speak to her, and tell her my opinion of you."
"How can I ever thank you or repay you sufficiently, dear Mr. Rayne," was the answer Guy heard to this painful speech of his uncle's. "I have no fear," continued the hypocrite, anxiously, "except," and he hesitated—"that she may have loved already—that is the only obstacle I dread."
"I don't think it," said Henry Rayne. "I'm sure she has not—who could she have loved?"
"You ought to know," continued Standish "whether at any time of her life she has met with some-one she preferred to any other. Do you think for instance," and his voice lowered so that Guy could scarcely catch its accents "that there was anything between her and—your nephew, Guy Elersley?"
Guy's face wore the strangest expression of contempt and pain, as he leaned nearer still to the side from whence the voices came. He could see them now—dark shadows only on the misty outline of the night. They were leaning with their backs against the small green railing, each smoking a cigar. Guy crouched nearer the protecting wall, and waited patiently for the issue of this strange rencontre. His uncle was silent for a second, and the uncertain voice with which he answered Vivian's last remark, pained him severely.
"Why do you think that?" he asked, almost huskily, "That never struck my mind, and if it had, I assure you, Standish, much as I esteem you, I would have kept that boy by me. If I suspected that Honor would ever love him, my life's happiness would have been complete."
Guy's eyes were growing moist.