"I will not stoop to such tricks and pretence, Marion," he cried
impatiently. "All I have is my love for her; if I have to cheat
and to trap her into caring, the whole thing would be degraded."

Miss Cavendish shrugged her shoulders and walked to the door.
"Such amateurs!" she exclaimed, and banged the door after her.

Carroll never quite knew how he had come to make a confidante of
Miss Cavendish. Helen and he had met her when they first arrived
in London, and as she had acted for a season in the United
States, she adopted the two Americans--and told Helen where to go
for boots and hats, and advised Carroll about placing his plays.
Helen soon made other friends, and deserted the artists, with
whom her work had first thrown her. She seemed to prefer the
society of the people who bought her paintings, and who
admired and made much of the painter. As she was very beautiful
and at an age when she enjoyed everything in life keenly and
eagerly, to give her pleasure was in itself a distinct
pleasure; and the worldly tired people she met were considering
their own entertainment quite as much as hers when they asked her
to their dinners and dances, or to spend a week with them in the
country. In her way, she was as independent as was Carroll in
his, and as she was not in love, as he was, her life was not
narrowed down to but one ideal. But she was not so young as to
consider herself infallible, and she had one excellent friend on
whom she was dependent for advice and to whose directions she
submitted implicitly. This was Lady Gower, the only person to
whom Helen had spoken of Carroll and of his great feeling for
her. Lady Gower, immediately after her marriage, had been a