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"Oh," he said, "I find I must go to Italy on business next summer. I wonder if you could arrange it with your mother so that you could go with me."

"Mercy!" exclaimed Lita. "I was afraid you were going to tell me you were going to be married again."

He looked up with a swift dark glance.

"Who put that idea into your head?" he asked.

"No one; it just occurred to me."

Where opposing affections exist, a lady, as much as a gentleman, is obliged to lie.

"That was your mother's idea," said her father, and gave a short, bitter laugh, as if human depravity could hardly go lower than to have made such a suggestion.

Well, Lita thought, perhaps her mother ought not to have said it; and yet, why not? Her father had remarried once. It made her feel old and cold, always to be obliged to weigh criticisms and complaints, to decide which of the two people she loved best in the world was right and which was wrong, every other minute. How she envied girls who could accept their parents as a unit!

Seeing her father's mind still occupied with his wrongs, she turned the conversation back to Italy. Of course, she would adore going—at least she would if her mother would agree to it.