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“Carrie Klingender has been talking to me. She says I monopolize you altogether, and that you are dying to be with some one else all the time. Is that true?”

“Good Lord, what a piece of impertinence!”

“Deliberate cheek, you might say,” said Lizzie calmly, “but is it true?”

“True!—What business is it of hers or of anyone else to pry into my doings? I wish to heaven Miss Klingender would mind her own business, and leave me alone. I have seen something of scandal and gossip in India, but this beats everything.” Campbell was quite white with anger, and one less interested than his companion might have suspected that there was some fire under this sudden puff of smoke.

“Well, she says so. She says they all say so,” Lizzie went on firmly, with her straightforward gaze fixed on his face. “Not that I mind their old gossip, but I do want to know the truth. . . . . You are angry with me for talking like this, I know, but that is better than laughing at me, as some men would. I am your friend, and I want to do you a good turn if I can. You believe that, don’t you?” she went on, with a sweet gentle look that was oddly at variance with her school-boyish method of conversation.