find out that your chance o’ gettin’ Mrs. Peyton’s consent ain’t as safe to gamble on as you reckon it is.  And mebbee, what’s more to the purpose, if you did get it, it might not be just the trump card to fetch Susy with!  And to wind up, Mr. Brant, when you do have to come down to the bed-rock and me and Jim McClosky, you may find out that him and me have discovered a better match for Susy than the son of old Ham Brant, who is trying to play the Spanish grandee off his father’s money on a couple of women.  And we mayn’t have to go far to do it—­or to get the real thing, Mr. Brant!”

Too heartsick and disgusted to even notice the slur upon himself or the import of her last words, Clarence only rose and bowed as she jumped up from the table.  But as she reached the door he said, half appealingly:—­

“Whatever are your other intentions, Mrs. McClosky, as we are both Susy’s guests, I beg you will say nothing of this to her while we are here, and particularly that you will not allow her to think for a moment that I have discussed my relations to her with anybody.”

She flung herself out of the door without a reply; but on entering the dark low-ceilinged drawing-room she was surprised to find that Susy was not there.  She was consequently obliged to return to the veranda, where Clarence had withdrawn, and to somewhat ostentatiously demand of the servants that Susy should be sent to her room at once.  But the young girl was not in her own room, and was apparently nowhere to be found.  Clarence, who had now fully determined as a last resource to make a direct appeal to Susy herself, listened to this fruitless search with some concern.  She could not have gone out in the rain, which was again falling.  She might be hiding somewhere to avoid a recurrence of the scene she had perhaps partly overheard.  He turned into the corridor that led to Mrs. Peyton’s boudoir.  As he knew that it was locked, he was surprised to see by the dim light of the hanging lamp that a duplicate key to the one in his desk was in the lock.  It must be Susy’s, and the young girl had probably taken refuge there.  He knocked gently.  There was a rustle in the room and the sound of a chair being moved, but no reply.  Impelled by a sudden instinct he opened the door, and was met by a cool current of air from some open window.  At the same moment the figure of Susy approached him from the semi-darkness of the interior.

“I did not know you were here,” said Clarence, much relieved, he knew not why, “but I am glad, for I wanted to speak with you alone for a few moments.”

She did not reply, but he drew a match from his pocket and lit the two candles which he knew stood on the table.  The wick of one was still warm, as if it had been recently extinguished.  As the light slowly radiated, he could see that she was regarding him with an air of affected unconcern, but a somewhat heightened color.  It was like her, and not inconsistent with his idea that she had come there to avoid an after scene with Mrs. McClosky or himself, or perhaps both.  The room was not disarranged in any way.  The window that was opened was the casement of the deep embrasured one in the rear wall, and the light curtain before it still swayed occasionally in the night wind.