it would serve him right--a
form of words that committed her to nothing. As he returned to Boston he
saw how curious he should be to learn whether she had betrayed him, as
it were, to Miss Chancellor. He might learn through Mrs. Luna; that
would almost reconcile him to going to see her again. Olive would
mention it in writing to her sister, and Adeline would repeat the
complaint. Perhaps she herself would even make him a scene about it;
that would be, for him, part of the unhappiness he had foretold to
Verena Tarrant.

XXVI

"Mrs. Henry Burrage, at home Wednesday evening, March 26th, at half-past
nine o'clock." It was in consequence of having received a card with
these words inscribed upon it that Basil Ransom presented himself, on
the evening she had designated, at the house of a lady he had never
heard of before. The account of the relation of effect to cause is not
complete, however, unless I mention that the card bore, furthermore, in
the left-hand lower corner, the words: "An Address from Miss Verena
Tarrant." He had an idea (it came mainly from the look and even the
odour of the engraved pasteboard) that Mrs. Burrage was a member of the
fashionable world, and it was with considerable surprise that he found
himself in such an element. He wondered what had induced a denizen of
that fine air to send him an invitation; then he said to himself that,
obviously, Verena Tarrant had simply requested that this should be done.
Mrs. Henry Burrage, whoever she might be, had asked her if she shouldn't
like some of her own friends to be present, and she had said, Oh yes,
and mentioned him in the happy group. She had been able to give Mrs.
Burrage his address, for had it not been contained in the short letter
he despatched to Monadnoc Place soon after his return from Boston, in
which he thanked Miss Tarrant afresh for the charming hour she had
enabled him to spend at Cambridge? She had not answered his letter at
the time, but Mrs. Burrage's card was a very good answer. Such a missive
deserved a rejoinder, and it was by way of rejoinder that he entered the
street car which, on the evening of March 26th, was to deposit him at a
corner adjacent to Mrs. Burrage's dwelling. He almost never went to
evening parties (he knew scarcely any one who gave them, though Mrs.
Luna had broken him in a little), and he was sure this occasion was of
festive intention, would have nothing in common with the nocturnal
"exercises" at Miss Bird