Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/39

 woman of the world, hope grew faint, and finally on her twentieth birthday they had taken a long walk together, and had talked the matter out. The understanding was now altered, and Farwell realized that Gladys was in earnest when she told him that "for two such beggars, with nothing a year, to speak about marriage would be sheer lunacy."

He had taken the disappointment very hard, and was thankful when the Carletons soon after decided to make a trip to Europe. It was easier to forget it all with her far away from him.

Gladys had been "a great success" in England, in Paris, in Rome,—wherever she went. She had been twice engaged, and had just missed becoming "my lady" by the intriguings of a sister of the young Earl who had fallen in love with her. The other lover whom she had accepted and finally discarded was a German banker of enormous wealth and high standing. Nevertheless, when the time appointed for the