The Senator's Favorite

"Are you glad?" he repeated gently, but she bit her lips without reply.

Lord Chester waited impatiently several minutes, but Ethel preserved the same scornful mien.

Then he rose indignantly.

"Perhaps I am unwelcome. You have repented your decision in my favor. I had better go," he said with hauteur.

Then she lifted her dainty gloved hand with a gesture for him to resume his seat.

"Do not go," she said icily, "until you have explained the tableau I witnessed when I entered just now."

"The tableau!"

She answered curtly:

"You and Precious sat close together with clasped hands like lovers. Am I to understand that my sister has deceitfully stolen my place in your heart, and that it would be best for me to resign my claim on your hand in her favor also?"

They were daring words, and if she had not known that Lord Chester was the soul of honor she would not have risked them. There was many a man who would have metaphorically "jumped at the chance" to be free of fetters that chafed so cruelly.

But Lord Chester, standing before her with arms folded on his broad chest, his dark-gray eyes ablaze with feeling, answered low and reproachfully:

"It grieves me, Ethel, to have you display a causeless jealousy for your noble and innocent young sister."

Ethel's red lips had curled at Arthur's tribute of praise to her sister, and she cried out quickly:

"It is plain that you admire my sister very much."

"I do," he replied quietly. "Do you object, Ethel?"

She sighed bitterly as she answered:

"Forgive me, dearest Arthur; but I love you so dearly that I would fain have you find no woman fair or admirable but myself."

He kissed her hand loyally.

"My first thoughts must be for you always, my liege lady," he replied, gallantly, then added: "But you must permit me to admire always your lovely mother and sister. Indeed, just before you entered I had begged Precious for the promise of her friendship. She was so shy and cold when I first came in she would not let me clasp her little hand. But I teased her so much, ascribing her coldness to my altered fortunes, that she was compelled to disclaim such cruelty, and gave me her hand in token of unaltered friendship. Will you believe that this was all, Ethel—that in neither word nor deed were we disloyal to you?"

She could not doubt the truth in the dear, earnest eyes, and in another moment she was sobbing against his shoulder.

"Oh, Arthur, I was wrong; but my jealous nature often goads me almost to madness. Forgive me, and love me, dearest, or my heart will break."

The anguished cry went to his heart, and he put his arm about her and soothed her as well as he could, presently winning her to calmness again.

But his own heart was very heavy.

Ethel's confession of her jealousy pained him and aroused fears for the future, for he had an innate horror of a jealous woman.

In two more weeks she would be his wife, and all his happiness would rest in her keeping. Would she torture him always by unreasonable jealousy?

The prospect was not pleasant, and he quailed in secret before it, but it seemed to him there was no retreat from this marriage, whose fetters would soon hold him in bondage. It was a point of honor.

With a stifled sigh he gave himself up to the task of entertaining his betrothed with an account of his summer, and his trip across, and so well did he succeed that soon the moody shadow faded from her brow and smiles dimpled the crimson lips.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A STARTLING DISCOVERY

"Let your summer friends go by,
With the summer weather;
Hearts there are that will not fly,
Though the storm should gather.

"Flowers of feeling pure and warm,
Hearts that cannot wither,
These for thee shall bide the storm
As the sunny weather."

    —Frances Sargent Osgood.

It was not long after this that Mrs. Winans made the discovery that Mr. Stanley had come in as an office-holder under the new administration and that therefore he and his family were living in Washington. So with a definite purpose she called very soon on Miss Stanley, taking with her Ethel and Precious. The latter she had instructed to ask casually for Ladybird's address.

Precious was so eager over the matter that she soon asked the question in a thoroughly natural manner, for she loved Ladybird very dearly.

"Miss Stanley, I wish very much to have the address of my old friend, Miss Conway."

Aura's red cheeks turned a deeper shade, and she said hesitatingly:

"She is married now, you know!"

"Yes, I have heard so, and I wish very much to write to her, as we were so fond of each other last summer," answered Precious, with such a loving light in her deep blue eyes for her old friend that Aura hated Ladybird more than ever.

Tossing her dark head with a careless grace she exclaimed:

"Indeed, I'm very sorry, Miss Precious, that I can't give you her address; but, really, I have not the faintest idea where she is at present. She was such an ungrateful girl that she has never written us a line since she married Jack Tennant and went away."

"Oh, I am so sorry, for we all loved Ladybird dearly, and I wished to invite her to my wedding," murmured Ethel, suddenly taking part in the conversation.

"Perhaps your father knows her address," Mrs. Winans said, looking suspiciously at the changing color of the crafty girl.

"Oh, dear, no, papa hasn't the slightest idea where—" began Aura hastily, but just then she was interrupted.

The curtains at the door had been twitching nervously several moments, and now they suddenly parted, and a slender little figure rushed into the room. It was all in black, and the pretty face was pale and sad, but they knew it in a minute by the mass of dancing golden-brown curls for Ladybird!

"Aura Stanley, you wicked girl, how dare you tell my friends such falsehoods about me? You know very well I am not married, and that I have lived under your father's roof ever since the day I came from Europe!" she cried angrily, her hazel eyes flashing like stars, and her pale cheeks beginning to glow with resentment.

It was certainly a very trying moment for Aura, for now she knew that her last chance of ingratiating herself with the Winans family and winning Earle was over. They would be sure to cut her acquaintance after this terrible exposé.

Her first impulse was to fly from the scene of her discomfiture, but the next moment a clever thought came to her, and she stood her ground boldly.