Luna,
sitting with her sister, much withdrawn, in one of the windows of the
big, hot, faded parlour of the boarding-house in Tenth Street, where
there was a rug before the chimney representing a Newfoundland dog
saving a child from drowning, and a row of chromo-lithographs on the
walls, imparted to her the impression she had received the evening
before--the impression of Basil Ransom's keen curiosity about Verena
Tarrant. Verena must have asked Mrs. Burrage to send him a card, and
asked it without mentioning the fact to Olive--for wouldn't Olive
certainly have remembered it? It was no use her saying that Mrs. Burrage
might have sent it of her own movement, because she wasn't aware of his
existence, and why should she be? Basil Ransom himself had told her he
didn't know Mrs. Burrage. Mrs. Luna knew whom he knew and whom he
didn't, or at least the sort of people, and they were not the sort that
belonged to the Wednesday Club. That was one reason why she didn't care
about him for any intimate relation--that he didn't seem to have any
taste for making nice friends. Olive would know what _her_ taste was in
this respect, though it wasn't that young woman's own any more than his.
It was positive that the suggestion about the card could only have come
from Verena. At any rate Olive could easily ask, or if she was afraid of
her telling a fib she could ask Mrs. Burrage. It was true Mrs. Burrage
might have been put on her guard by Verena, and would perhaps invent
some other account of the matter; therefore Olive had better just
believe what _she_ believed, that Verena had secured his presence at the
party and had had private reasons for doing so. It is to be feared that
Ransom's remark to Mrs. Luna the night before about her having lost her
head was near to the mark; for if she had not been blinded by her
rancour she would have guessed the horror with which she inspired her
sister when she spoke in that offhand way of Verena's lying and Mrs.
Burrage's lying. Did people lie like that in Mrs. Luna's set? It was
Olive's plan of life not to lie, and attributing a similar disposition
to people she liked, it was impossible for her to believe that Verena
had had the intention of deceiving her. Mrs. Luna, in a calmer hour,
might also have divined that Olive would make her private comments on
the strange story of Basil Ransom's having made up to Verena out of
pique at Adeline's rebuff; for this was the account of the matter that
she now of