she got up
abruptly, just when the talkative gentleman from Boston was asking her
what she thought of the "moral tone" of that city. On the piazza she
encountered Clifford Wentworth, coming round from the other side of the
house. She stopped him; she told him she wished to speak to him.

"Why did n't you go home with your cousin?" she asked.

Clifford stared. "Why, Robert has taken her," he said.

"Exactly so. But you don't usually leave that to him."

"Oh," said Clifford, "I want to see those fellows start off. They don't
know how to drive."

"It is not, then, that you have quarreled with your cousin?"

Clifford reflected a moment, and then with a simplicity which had, for
the Baroness, a singularly baffling quality, "Oh, no; we have made up!"
he said.

She looked at him for some moments; but Clifford had begun to be afraid
of the Baroness's looks, and he endeavored, now, to shift himself out
of their range. "Why do you never come to see me any more?" she asked.
"Have I displeased you?"

"Displeased me? Well, I guess not!" said Clifford, with a laugh.

"Why have n't you come, then?"

"Well, because I am afraid of getting shut up in that back room."

Eugenia kept looking at him. "I should think you would like that."

"Like it!" cried Clifford.

"I should, if I were a young man calling upon a charming woman."

"A charming woman is n't much use to me when I am shut up in that back
room!"

"I am afraid I am not of much use to you anywhere!" said Madame M;
auunster. "And yet you know how I have offered to be."

"Well," observed Clifford, by way of response, "there comes the buggy."

"Never mind the buggy. Do you know I am going away?"

"Do you mean now?"

"I mean in a few days. I leave this place."

"You are going back to Europe?"

"To Europe, where you are to come and see me."

"Oh, yes, I 'll come out there," said Clifford.

"But before that," Eugenia declared, "you must come and see me here."

"Well, I shall keep clear of that back room!" rejoined her simple young
kinsman.

The Baroness was silent a moment. "Yes, you must come frankly--boldly.
That will be very much better. I see that now."

"I see it!" said Clifford. And then, in an instant, "What 's the matter
with that buggy?" His practiced ear had apparently detected an unnatural
creak in the wheels of the light vehicle which had been brought to the
portico, and he hurried away to investigate so grave an anomaly.

The Baroness walke