be taken as a hint,
and I felt she wished me not to leave my fellow visitors on her hands.
Jasper complained of the closeness of the room, said that it was not a
night to sit in a room--one ought to be out in the air, under the sky. He
denounced the windows that overlooked the water for not opening upon a
balcony or a terrace, until his mother, whom he hadn't yet satisfied
about his telegram, reminded him that there was a beautiful balcony in
front, with room for a dozen people. She assured him we would go and sit
there if it would please him.

"It will be nice and cool tomorrow, when we steam into the great ocean,"
said Miss Mavis, expressing with more vivacity than she had yet thrown
into any of her utterances my own thought of half an hour before. Mrs.
Nettlepoint replied that it would probably be freezing cold, and her son
murmured that he would go and try the drawing-room balcony and report
upon it. Just as he was turning away he said, smiling, to Miss Mavis:
"Won't you come with me and see if it's pleasant?"

"Oh well, we had better not stay all night!" her mother exclaimed, but
still without moving. The girl moved, after a moment's hesitation;--she
rose and accompanied Jasper to the other room. I saw how her slim
tallness showed to advantage as she walked, and that she looked well as
she passed, with her head thrown back, into the darkness of the other
part of the house. There was something rather marked, rather
surprising--I scarcely knew why, for the act in itself was simple
enough--in her acceptance of such a plea, and perhaps it was our sense of
this that held the rest of us somewhat stiffly silent as she remained
away. I was waiting for Mrs. Mavis to go, so that I myself might go; and
Mrs. Nettlepoint was waiting for her to go so that I mightn't. This
doubtless made the young lady's absence appear to us longer than it
really was--it was probably very brief. Her mother moreover, I think,
had now a vague lapse from ease. Jasper Nettlepoint presently returned
to the back drawing-room to serve his companion with our lucent syrup,
and he took occasion to remark that it was lovely on the balcony: one
really got some air, the breeze being from that quarter. I remembered,
as he went away with his tinkling tumbler, that from _my_ hand, a few
minutes before, Miss Mavis had not been willing to accept this innocent
offering. A little later Mrs. Nettlepoint said: "Well, if it's so
pleasant there we had bet