presence, and she gave Darrow the sense that he was being
tested and approved as a last addition to the Leath Collection.

She also made him aware of the immense advantage he possessed in
belonging to the diplomatic profession. She spoke of this humdrum
calling as a Career, and gave Darrow to understand that she supposed him
to have been seducing Duchesses when he was not negotiating Treaties.
He heard again quaint phrases which romantic old ladies had used in his
youth: "Brilliant diplomatic society...social advantages...the entree
everywhere...nothing else FORMS a young man in the same way..." and she
sighingly added that she could have wished her grandson had chosen the
same path to glory.

Darrow prudently suppressed his own view of the profession, as well
as the fact that he had adopted it provisionally, and for reasons
less social than sociological; and the talk presently passed on to the
subject of his future plans.

Here again, Madame de Chantelle's awe of the Career made her admit
the necessity of Anna's consenting to an early marriage. The fact that
Darrow was "ordered" to South America seemed to put him in the romantic
light of a young soldier charged to lead a forlorn hope: she sighed and
said: "At such moments a wife's duty is at her husband's side."

The problem of Effie's future might have disturbed her, she added; but
since Anna, for a time, consented to leave the little girl with her,
that problem was at any rate deferred. She spoke plaintively of the
responsibility of looking after her granddaughter, but Darrow divined
that she enjoyed the flavour of the word more than she felt the weight
of the fact.

"Effie's a perfect child. She's more like my son, perhaps, than dear
Owen. She'll never intentionally give me the least trouble. But of
course the responsibility will be great...I'm not sure I should dare
to undertake it if it were not for her having such a treasure of a
governess. Has Anna told you about our little governess? After all the
worry we had last year, with one impossible creature after another, it
seems providential, just now, to have found her. At first we were afraid
she was too young; but now we've the greatest confidence in her. So
clever and amusing--and SUCH a lady! I don't say her education's all it
might be...no drawing or singing...but one can't have everything; and
she speaks Italian..."

Madame de Chantelle's fond insistence on the likeness between Effie
Leath and her fath