Both Dudley and Carrie looked startled as they withdrew their eyes from each other’s face.  Then each sought the eyes of the other again as if it were furtively.  Dudley seemed, of the two, the more impressed by his friend’s words.  He laughed with some constraint.

“Fanciful, very fanciful,” said he, mockingly.  “What likeness can there be between a girl with a white face, fair hair and blue eyes,” and he gave a glance at Carrie which had in it something of fear, “and a man of my type?”

Max looked at him, and then said slowly: 

“It’s not in the features, I know; it’s not in the coloring; but it is there, for all that.”

“The young lady will not feel flattered,” said Dudley, ironically.  “I will leave you to make your peace with her, and when I come back, in ten minutes, I expect to find you both ready to start.”

He had his hand on the door, when some thought seemed to strike him, and he hesitated and turned to put his hand on the shoulder of Max.  Then he swung the young man round in such a way that his own back was turned to Carrie.  Looking steadily and with a certain look of affectionate regard into his friend’s face, he formed with his lips and eyes a final warning against the girl.  Then, with a nod, he went out, closing the door behind him.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SWORD FALLS.

When Max turned, he found that Carrie had retreated within the door of the sitting-room.  He followed her into the room.

“I hope he’ll give us the full ten minutes,” said he, “for I had no luncheon to-day, and when I’m hungry I always get very cross.  Is that your experience?”

Carrie looked at the table with a strange smile.

“You ought to know,” said she.

His face showed that he had not forgotten.

“Those biscuits!” said he.  “I remember.  Does your granny treat you better now?”

Carrie’s face grew gloomy and cold.  And Max noticed that, thin as she had been when he saw her last, she was much thinner now.  The outline of her cheek was pathetically pinched, almost sunken.

“No.  Worse,” she said at last, in a low voice.

“You don’t mean that she—­starves you?”

To his dismay, he saw the tears welling up in the girl’s blue eyes, which looked preternaturally large in her wasted face.

“Pretty nearly,” said she.

Max stared at her for about the space of a second; then he went behind her, put his hands lightly on her shoulders and inducted her into the chair Dudley had placed for himself at the dinner-table.

“It is evident,” said he, gravely, “that Providence has appointed me purveyor of food to you, for this is the second time, within a comparatively short acquaintance, that I have had the honor of providing you with a repast.  This time it’s quite in the manner of ’The Arabian Nights,’ isn’t it?”