"I will promise you anything!"

Olga glanced quickly at him from one side; Irene, on the other,
looked away with a slight smile.

"No," she said, "you shall promise Miss Hannaford. She will have you
under observation; whereas you might play tricks with me after I'm
gone. Olga, be strict with this young gentleman. He is well-meaning,
but he vacillates; at times he even tergiversates--a shocking
thing."

There was laughter, but Piers suffered. He felt humiliated. Had he
been alone with Miss Derwent, he might have asserted his manhood,
and it would have been _her_ turn to blush, to be confused. He had a
couple of years more than she. The trouble was that he could not
feel this superiority of age; she treated him like a schoolboy, and
to himself he seemed one. Even more than Irene's, he avoided Olga's
look, and walked on shamefaced.

The remaining days, until Miss Derwent departed, were to him a mere
blank of misery. Impossible to open a book, and sleep came only with
uttermost exhaustion. How he passed the hours, he knew not. Spying
at windows, listening for voices, creeping hither and thither in
torment of multiform ignominy, forcing speech when he longed to be
silent, not daring to break silence when his heart seemed bursting
with desire to utter itself--a terrible time. And Irene persevered
in her elder-sister attitude; she was kindness itself, but never
seemed to remark a strangeness in his look and manner. Once he found
courage to say that he would like to know Dr. Derwent; she replied
that her father was a very busy man, but that no doubt some