forelock. Once it’s known that Jean Bower is leaving the factory, there’ll be plenty of people anxious to work their idle, silly daughters into her pleasant job. If you are wise, Harry Garlett, you will bear Agatha Cheale in mind.” 51 “I will, indeed, Miss Prince. Thank you for mentioning her.” Miss Prince turned back toward her house, while Harry Garlett walked on, in a turmoil of astonishment and, yes, of bitter, intolerable jealousy. Jean Bower and that red-haired brute, Tasker? Why, the mere thought of their names being associated in the way he had just heard it done made him feel beside himself with anger. He quickened his footsteps, even now unaware of what was the matter with him. Indeed, as he went up the drive leading to the Macleans’ front door, he seriously told himself that his feeling of utter dismay was owing to the loss Jean would be to him from a business point of view. A most miserable evening followed. Whenever Harry Garlett had a chance of doing so he would stare furtively, his heart full of jealousy and suspicious misery, at Jean Bower’s bright, animated face. He wondered whether Tasker had been there on Friday afternoon? The day before yesterday Miss Bower had asked for the afternoon off—a most unusual thing for her to do. Jean? What a lovely unusual name! Till this evening she had been “Miss Bower” even in Harry Garlett’s inmost thoughts. Henceforth she would always be Jean.... He was so silent, so constrained in his manner, that the doctor and Mrs. Maclean noticed that something was wrong. But they were, as Jean’s aunt expressed it afterwards, a hundred miles from suspecting the truth. By both these good people Harry Garlett was still regarded as the newly made widower of “poor Emily,” and as for their dear little niece, they were secretly happy in the belief that she would soon be Mrs. Tasker, settled within a pleasantly easy distance of themselves, with her future assured, even if the young medical man, whom they had regarded with such very different feelings till a few months ago, were not exactly 52a hero of romance. Tasker was proceeding in his wooing in a leisurely, cautious manner, but neither of the onlookers suspected the truth—the truth being that he felt as if there were an invisible, but strong, barrier between the girl and himself. 52
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