this
it was never discovered what Felix understood.

"Once you have your liberty, what are your objections?" he asked.

"Well, I don't particularly like him."

"Oh, try a little."

"I am trying now," said Eugenia. "I should succeed better if he did n't
live here. I could never live here."

"Make him go to Europe," Felix suggested.

"Ah, there you speak of happiness based upon violent effort," the
Baroness rejoined. "That is not what I am looking for. He would never
live in Europe."

"He would live anywhere, with you!" said Felix, gallantly.

His sister looked at him still, with a ray of penetration in her
charming eyes; then she turned away again. "You see, at all events," she
presently went on, "that if it had been said of me that I had come over
here to seek my fortune it would have to be added that I have found it!"

"Don't leave it lying!" urged Felix, with smiling solemnity.

"I am much obliged to you for your interest," his sister declared, after
a moment. "But promise me one thing: pas de zele! If Mr. Acton should
ask you to plead his cause, excuse yourself."

"I shall certainly have the excuse," said Felix, "that I have a cause of
my own to plead."

"If he should talk of me--favorably," Eugenia continued, "warn him
against dangerous illusions. I detest importunities; I want to decide at
my leisure, with my eyes open."

"I shall be discreet," said Felix, "except to you. To you I will say,
Accept him outright."

She had advanced to the open door-way, and she stood looking at him. "I
will go and dress and think of it," she said; and he heard her moving
slowly to her apartments.

Late in the afternoon the rain stopped, and just afterwards there was
a great flaming, flickering, trickling sunset. Felix sat in his
painting-room and did some work; but at last, as the light, which had
not been brilliant, began to fade, he laid down his brushes and came out
to the little piazza of the cottage. Here he walked up and down for some
time, looking at the splendid blaze of the western sky and saying, as he
had often said before, that this was certainly the country of sunsets.
There was something in these glorious deeps of fire that quickened his
imagination; he always found images and promises in the western sky. He
thought of a good many things--of roaming about the world with Gertrude
Wentworth; he seemed to see their possible adventures, in a glowing
frieze, between the cloud-bars; then of what Eugenia had