n pessimism.

After dinner, when they went into the drawing-room, the young man noted
with complacency that this apartment, vast in itself, communicated with
two or three others into which it would be easy to pass without
attracting attention, the doors being replaced by old tapestries, looped
up and offering no barrier. With pictures and curiosities all over the
place, there were plenty of pretexts for wandering away. He lost no time
in asking Dora whether her mother would send Mademoiselle Bourde after
them if she were to go with him into one of the other rooms, the same
way she had done--didn't she remember?--that last night in New York, at
the hotel. Dora didn't admit that she remembered (she was too loyal to
her mother for that, and Raymond foresaw that this loyalty would be a
source of irritation to him again, as it had been in the past), but he
perceived, all the same, that she had not forgotten. She raised no
difficulty, and a few moments later, while they stood in an adjacent
_salon_ (he had stopped to admire a bust of Effie, wonderfully living,
slim and juvenile, the work of one of the sculptors who are the pride of
contemporary French art), he said to her, looking about him, 'How has
she done it so fast?'

'Done what, Raymond?'

'Why, done everything. Collected all these wonderful things; become
intimate with Madame de Brives and every one else; organised her
life--the life of all of you--so brilliantly.'

'I have never seen mamma in a hurry,' Dora replied.

'Perhaps she will be, now that I have come,' Raymond suggested,
laughing.

The girl hesitated a moment 'Yes, she was, to invite you--the moment she
knew you were here.'

'She has been most kind, and I talk like a brute. But I am liable to do
worse--I give you notice. She won't like it any more than she did
before, if she thinks I want to make up to you.'

'Don't, Raymond--don't!' the girl exclaimed, gently, but with a look of
sudden pain.

'Don't what, Dora?--don't make up to you?'

'Don't begin to talk of those things. There is no need. We can go on
being friends.'

'I will do exactly as you prescribe, and heaven forbid I should annoy
you. But would you mind answering me a question? It is very particular,
very intimate.' He stopped, and she only looked at him, saying nothing.
So he went on: 'Is it an idea of your mother's that you should
marry--some person here?' He gave her a chance to reply, but still she
was silent, and he continued: 'D