“Herbert feels,” she began, “that if you refuse his offer now he can’t promise to keep it open. He can’t be responsible for you if you take this step. He said he wanted you to understand thoroughly.”

Julia Cloud turned and walked with swift step to the little parlor where lay the paper she and Mr. Luddington had just signed, and a copy of which he had taken with him. She returned to her astonished sister with the paper in her hand.

“Perhaps it would be just as well for you to read this,” she said with dignity, and put the paper into Ellen’s hands, going back to her clearing of the table.

There was silence in the dining-room while Ellen read, Julia moving on quiet feet about the table, putting things to rights. She had finished her part of the argument. She was resolutely putting out of her mind the things her sister had just said, and refusing altogether to think of Herbert. She knew in her heart just how Herbert had looked when he had said those things, even to the snarl at the corner of his nose. She knew, too, that Ellen had probably not reported the message even so disagreeably as the original, and she knew that it would be better to forget.

“Well,” said Ellen, rising after a long perusal, laying the paper on the table, “that sounds all very well in writing. The thing is to see how it comes out. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and you needn’t tell me that any man in his senses will pay all that salary merely for a ‘chaperon,’ as he calls it. If he 79 does, he’s a fool; that’s all I’ve got to say. But I suppose nothing short of getting caught in a trap will make you see it