he Baroness."

Mr. Wentworth stared a moment, and remembered that queer proposition of
Felix's. For a moment he did not know whether it was not to be wished
that Clifford, after all, might have gone to Boston. "The Baroness
has not honored us tonight," he said. "She has not come over for three
days."

"Is she ill?" Acton asked.

"No; I have been to see her."

"What is the matter with her?"

"Well," said Mr. Wentworth, "I infer she has tired of us."

Acton pretended to sit down, but he was restless; he found it impossible
to talk with Mr. Wentworth. At the end of ten minutes he took up his hat
and said that he thought he would "go off." It was very late; it was ten
o'clock.

His quiet-faced kinsman looked at him a moment. "Are you going home?" he
asked.

Acton hesitated, and then answered that he had proposed to go over and
take a look at the Baroness.

"Well, you are honest, at least," said Mr. Wentworth, sadly.

"So are you, if you come to that!" cried Acton, laughing. "Why should
n't I be honest?"

The old man opened the "North American" again, and read a few lines.
"If we have ever had any virtue among us, we had better keep hold of it
now," he said. He was not quoting.

"We have a Baroness among us," said Acton. "That 's what we must keep
hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame Munster again to wonder
what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed
out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road
that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a
moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of
her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the
lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm
night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame
Munster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster
than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise.
But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open
window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness
within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the
window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a
moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious.

"Mais entrez donc!" she said at last. Acton passed in across the
window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her.
But the next m