Thus she reasoned, yet nevertheless Michael's warning troubled her and finally she decided to go to the best source of information and ask the young man himself.

Accordingly three days after Michael's visit when he dropped in to ask if she would go to the opera that evening with him instead of something else they had planned to do together, she laughingly questioned him.

"What in the world can you ever have done, Mr. Carter, that should make you unfit company for me?"

She asked the question lightly yet her eyes watched his face most closely as she waited for the answer.

The blood rolled in dark waves over his handsome face and his brows grew dark with anger which half hid the start of almost fear with which he regarded her.

"What do you mean, Starr?" He looked at her keenly and could not tell if she were in earnest or not.

"Just that," she mocked half gravely. "Tell me what you have been doing that should make you unfit company for me? Some one has been trying to make me promise to have nothing to do with you, and I want to know what it means."

"Who has been doing that?" There were dangerous lights in the dark eyes, lights that showed the brutality of the coward and the evildoer.

"Oh, a man!" said Starr provokingly; "but if you look like that I shan't tell you anything more about it, I don't like you now. You look as if you could eat me. You make me think there must be something in it all."