CHAPTER XV.
Erskine soon found plenty of themes for his newly begotten cynicism.
Gertrude's manner towards him softened so much that he, believing her heart given to his rival, concluded that she was tempting him to make a proposal which she had no intention of accepting.

Sir Charles, to whom he told what he had overheard in the avenue, professed sympathy, but was evidently pleased to learn that there was nothing serious in the attentions Trefusis paid to Agatha.

Erskine wrote three bitter sonnets on hollow friendship and showed them to Sir Charles, who, failing to apply them to himself, praised them highly and showed them to Trefusis without asking the author's permission.

Trefusis remarked that in a corrupt society expressions of dissatisfaction were always creditable to a writer's sensibility; but he did not say much in praise of the verse.
"Why has he taken to writing in this vein ?" he said.

"Has he been disappointed in any way of late?
Has he proposed to Miss Lindsay and been rejected ?" "No," said Sir Charles surprised by this blunt reference to a subject they had never before discussed.