mesmerized!"

Then the Beaubien would smile knowingly and take her in her arms. "We
shall see," she would often say, "we shall see." But she would offer
no further comment.

Thus the summer months sped swiftly past, with Carmen ever looking and
listening, receiving, sifting, in, but not of, the new world into
which she had been cast. In a sense her existence was as narrowly
routined as ever it had been in Simiti, for her days were spent at the
great organ, with frequent rides in the automobile through the parks
and boulevards for variation; and her evenings were jealously guarded
by Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, whose policy was to keep the girl in seclusion
until the advent of her formal introduction to the world of
fashionable society, when her associates would be selected only from
the narrow circle of moneyed or titled people with whom alone she
might mingle. To permit her to form promiscuous acquaintances now
might prove fatal to the scheming woman's cherished plans, and was a
risk that could not be entertained. And Carmen, suppressing her
wonder, and striving incessantly to curb her ready tongue, accepted
her environment as the unreal expression of the human mind, and
submitted--and waited.

CHAPTER 10

The chill blasts had begun to swoop down from the frozen North, and
summer had gathered her dainty robes about her and fled shivering
before them. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles stood at a window and gazed with
unseeing eyes at the withered leaves tossing in the wind.

Carmen's sixteenth birthday was past by some months; the gay season
was at hand; and the day was speeding toward her which she had set for
the girl's formal _debut_. Already, through informal calls and
gatherings, she had made her charming and submissive ward known to
most of her own city acquaintances and the members of her particular
set. The fresh, beautiful girl's winning personality; her frank,
ingenuous manner; her evident sincerity and her naive remarks, which
now only gave hints of her radical views, had opened every heart wide
to her, and before the advent of the social season her wonderful story
was on everybody's tongue. There remained now only the part which the
woman had planned for the Beaubien, but which, thus far, she had found
neither the courage nor the opportunity to suggest to that influential
woman. Gazing out into the deserted street, she stamped her ample foot
in sheer vexation. The Beaubien had absorbed Carmen; had been
politely af