and so mrs. vere wanted you in her theatre-party!” said cousin eugenia to margaret, the next morning, as they were driving about in a flutter of preparation for christmas. margaret had sent off a charming box home, and she was now assisting mrs. gaston in the completion of her various christmas schemes.

“yes,” she answered quietly, “and i declined.”

“louis told me about it. it’s just as well you got out of it. he was afraid he had ventured too far in advising you. he said he felt he had no sort of right to do it, and that, in most cases, he should have held his peace; but he couldn’t bear to think of you in the midst of mrs. vere’s set, and he found the impulse to prevent it too strong to be resisted.”

“he was quite right,” said margaret, feeling a little throb of pleasure in the considerate interest implied in what mr. gaston had said. “i should not have wanted to go, in any case, but i might not have known how to avoid it, and he gave me the means. i felt very thankful to him. but what is it that makes both you and mr. gaston distrust mrs. vere?”

cousin eugenia gave a little shrug.

“mrs. vere is extremely pretty,” she said, “and of course she has admirers. she is certainly very free in her ways with them, but i know no more than that, and i certainly don’t care to know more. i asked louis why he objected to your going with her, and he said, with that frown of his, that you could not possibly find any pleasure in her acquaintance. he would say nothing more, but i felt sure, by the way he looked, that there was a good deal kept back.”

“i wonder at alan decourcy,” said margaret.

“do you?” said mrs. gaston. “i don’t. i have long since ceased to wonder at any man’s admiring any woman.”

“but how can he? he is so fastidious.”

“perhaps i used the wrong word,” said mrs. gaston; “to admire a woman is one thing and to find her amusing is another. i fancy mr. decourcy finds mrs. vere amusing—most men do, indeed—and your cousin is the sort of man with whom that is paramount. with men of a certain type the woman who can furnish them most amusement will ever have the strongest hold upon them, and to that type i rather think your fascinating cousin belongs. as i said, most men find mrs. vere amusing, and as her husband does not look after her at all, the coast is clear for them to come and be amused; and they come.”

“i don’t think mr. gaston finds her amusing,” said margaret.

“louis! i should think not!” said mrs. gaston, warmly. “my dear, you don’t know louis yet—perhaps you never will. very few people besides edward and i know what that boy is. i know him, through and through, and i unhesitatingly declare that he’s an angel. i believe he’s of a different grain from other men. mrs. vere could no more ensnare him than she could put shackles on a mist-cloud; and for that reason—because she knows her usual darts are powerless with him—she is feverishly anxious to get him in her toils. i’ll do her the justice to say her efforts have been masterly. she’s left no stone unturned. she’s tried the musical dodge, and invited him to warble duets with her. that must have been a temptation, for you know how he loves music, and her voice is charming. she’s tried the charity dodge, and has come to him with tears in her eyes to get him to make plans for cottages she proposed to erect for poor people on her estate in the outer antipodes. he told me about that himself, and what do you suppose was his answer to her appeal? he told her that when she had made arrangements with the builder to go to work, to tell the latter to write to him on the subject and he would gladly furnish the plans for her cottages and feel himself honored in advancing her good work—begged her not to mention the question of payment, and bowed her out of his office with the assurance that the builder’s letter should find him most willing to co-operate, and insisted that she should wash her fair hands of these dry business details and leave them entirely to the builder and himself. she plucked up courage on the landing, to tell him she had some plans to submit. he replied to this that, as he had long since submitted himself and all his designs and aspirations to his partner, and as he did not venture to call his soul, much less his squares and angles, his own, without the approbation of mr. ames, her plans must be submitted to the firm at new york, where he would promise to give them his circumspect attention under the judicious eye of his chief. it must have been a funny scene,” said cousin eugenia, smiling. “poor mrs. vere! she let him alone severely for some time after that, but she finally began again on another tack. i think she is beginning to understand now that there is one man who can resist her, and when once she is quite persuaded that she is vanquished, how she will hate him! there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to avenge herself; but i fancy louis is as far beyond the range of her revenge as he is of her fascination. the truth is, as to louis,” cousin eugenia went on, after a moment’s pause, “that he’s radically cold-blooded. he’s affectionate to his friends and relatives, and really fond of many of them, but he’s absolutely unemotional—not to be roused to deep feeling. but for this fact i fear mrs. vere’s efforts would have been long since crowned with success. it is really a valuable trait for a man to have, if it were only for its uniqueness, but occasionally it’s a little bit exasperating. who but louis, for instance, would have lived all these weeks in the same house with a charming girl like you without falling, at least a little, in love with her? for you are a charming girl, my dear, and louis accurately appreciates the fact; but there it ends. at first i thought i saw signs of a speedy capitulation, but it came to nothing. i ought to have known the frogginess of my brother-in-law better. i should have liked louis to fall in love with you, no matter how it ended. it would have been nice to have you for a sister and neighbor, and if that was not to be, it would have been a satisfaction to see louis stirred out of his eternal calm, and concerning himself about something over and above designs and estimates. but i am afraid i am never to have the supreme delight of seeing louis love-lorn. and you, my dear,” said cousin eugenia, turning to look at her, “i begin to fear you’re not very far from being rather froggy yourself. it’s a very good thing that you’ve taken no more of a fancy to louis, as it all turns out—(i fancied you, too, were in some danger at first!)—but i do wonder how you have kept so cool about that captivating young man, your cousin, with his sweet, caressing smiles and artful, foreign ways. the mrs. vere episode would have been rather a blow, i fear, if you had set your affections in that quarter.”

“on the whole,” said margaret, smiling, “it seems to me that i am escaping a good many breakers by remaining fancy free. but here we are at our destination.”

and so the conversation ended.

during this day—the one that followed the party—margaret received a note from charley somers, bearing a washington post-mark. observing this, her first angry thought was to return it unopened, so indignant was she at his persistence, and when she presently decided to read it, its humble and imploring tone did not mollify her in the least. her letter of course had not reached him, and he had grown impatient and concluded not to wait to hear from her.

she wrote him a few lines, declining explicitly to see him, feeling herself justified in taking so extreme a measure, as lesser ones had failed to repress the young man’s ardor.