Page:Duer Miller--The charm school.djvu/137

 The suggestion was not altogether disagreeable to George; two primitive instincts contended within himself-preservation and jealousy; one bade him go and the other bade him stay, and in the end, like the great Gibbon, he sighed as a lover but obeyed as an accoimtant. He heard Austin begin, "Really, Elise, I have nothing to say to you in regard to this—" and then the door closed behind him. Elise closed it and, leaning her back against it, she looked at Austin.

"I have nothing whatever to say to you," Austin continued, while all the phrases he had been inventing especially for her benefit went whirling through his brain. "If you are really attached to this"—(the words "red-faced lout" rose to his lips, but he suppressed them)—"this young man with the consent of your grandfather, it is no concern of mine, but you shall not correspond with him clandestinely. It makes no difference to me what your feelings may be, but while you are in my school your conduct—"

"Mr. Bevans, is that really true?"

"Is what true?"

"That you don't care how I feel?"

He could not say that it was, and did not choose to say that it was not. In the