look of that keen but limited knowledge which
renders women's conjectures of evil always so amusing, or so pathetic,
to men.

"Better let the champagne alone, too," said her brother, darkly.

"Yes, I know that," she admitted, and she lay back in her chair, looking
dreamily into the fire. After a while she asked, abruptly: "Will you
give it up if I will?"

"I am afraid I couldn't."

"You could try."

"Oh, I'm used to that."

"Then it's a bargain," she said. She jumped from her chair and went over
to him, and smoothed his hair over his forehead and kissed the place she
had smoothed, though it was unpleasantly damp to her lips. "Poor boy,
poor boy! Now, remember! No more jays for me, and no more jags for you.
Goodnight."

Her brother broke into a wild laugh at her slanging, which had such a
bizarre effect in relation to her physical delicacy.

XXXII.

Jeff did not know whether Miss Bessie Lynde meant to go to Mrs.
Bevidge's Thursdays or not. He thought she might have been bantering him
by what she said, and he decided that he would risk going to the first
of them on the chance of meeting her. She was not there, and there was
no one there whom he knew. Mrs. Bevidge made no effort to enlarge his
acquaintance, and after he had drunk a cup of her tea he went away with
rage against society in his heart, which he promised himself to vent at
the first chance of refusing its favors. But the chance seemed not to
come. The world which had opened its gates to him was fast shut again,
and he had to make what he could of renouncing it. He worked pretty
hard, and he renewed himself in his fealty to Cynthia, while his mind
strayed curiously to that other girl. But he had almost abandoned the
hope of meeting her again, when a large party was given on the eve of
the Harvard Mid-Year Examinations, which end the younger gayeties of
Boston, for a fortnight at least, in January. The party was so large
that the invitations overflowed the strict bounds of society at some
points. In the case of Jeff Durgin the excess was intentional beyond the
vague benevolence which prompted the giver of the party to ask certain
other outsiders. She was a lady of a soul several sizes larger than the
souls of some other society leaders; she was not afraid to do as she
liked; for instance, she had not only met the Vostrands at Westover's
tea, several years before, but she had afterward offered some
hospitalities to those ladies which had dischar