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16 “But—aunt! indeed you are mistaken. I—I don’t love him one atom! Such a thing has never entered my head.”

“Then may I ask what kept you awake all night?” was the bland inquiry. “My dear, you have a tell-tale face! I remarked it instantly: you cannot have slept a wink till morning!”

It was true; she had not; but then she had seen Tom Erichsen near Hyde Park Corner when she pictured him in Calcutta. And that was not all. She had pressed him for his address, and then written him a letter which had made her feel hot or cold ever since. The glow was from conscious pride in her own full, free, selfless love; the shiver from a new-born doubt of his, begotten by haunting memories of his face. And the more Claire thought of it the less could she fathom his still being in London, and so shabby. And she had thought of it all night long.

“I had things on my mind,” she now confessed; “but Mr. Daintree wasn’t one of them.”

“Then it’s somebody else,” reflected Lady Starkie, with half-shut eyes upon the girl’s dry lips and burning cheeks. “Who is this Captain Blaydes I hear so much about?” she asked aloud.

“Another friend of papa’s.”

“Another new friend?”

“Newer than Mr. Daintree. He comes to see papa on business. But I have had him a good deal on my hands; too much, for my taste.”

“You don’t like him, then?”

“Hate him!” said the girl, with sudden vehemence, her mind for once detaching itself from Tom. “There, it’s out: I never said it to anybody else, but it’s what I