ad been listening.

"You say she will come back to you, mamma," she exclaimed. "Here she is
arrived!"

CHAPTER XXVII

At the same moment the door was thrown open, and Mrs. Gordon appeared
on the threshold with a gentleman behind her. Blanche stood an instant
looking into the lighted room and hesitating--flushed a little, smiling,
extremely pretty.

"May I come in?" she said, "and may I bring in Captain Lovelock?"

The two ladies, of course, fluttering toward her with every
demonstration of hospitality, drew her into the room, while Bernard
proceeded to greet the Captain, who advanced with a certain awkward and
bashful majesty, almost sweeping with his great stature Mrs. Vivian's
humble ceiling. There was a tender exchange of embraces between Blanche
and her friends, and the charming visitor, losing no time, began to
chatter with her usual volubility. Mrs. Vivian and Angela made her
companion graciously welcome; but Blanche begged they would n't mind
him--she had only brought him as a watch-dog.

"His place is on the rug," she said. "Captain Lovelock, go and lie down
on the rug."

"Upon my soul, there is nothing else but rugs in these French places!"
the Captain rejoined, looking round Mrs. Vivian's salon. "Which rug do
you mean?"

Mrs. Vivian had remarked to Blanche that it was very kind of her to come
first, and Blanche declared that she could not have laid her head on her
pillow before she had seen her dear Mrs. Vivian.

"Do you suppose I would wait because I am married?" she inquired, with
a keen little smile in her charming eyes. "I am not so much married as
that, I can tell you! Do you think I look much as if I were married,
with no one to bring me here to-night but Captain Lovelock?"

"I am sure Captain Lovelock is a very gallant escort," said Mrs. Vivian.

"Oh, he was not afraid--that is, he was not afraid of the journey,
though it lay all through those dreadful wild Champs Elysees. But when
we arrived, he was afraid to come in--to come up here. Captain Lovelock
is so modest, you know--in spite of all the success he had in America.
He will tell you about the success he had in America; it quite makes up
for the defeat of the British army in the Revolution. They were defeated
in the Revolution, the British, were n't they? I always told him so, but
he insists they were not. 'How do we come to be free, then?' I always
ask him; 'I suppose you admit that we are free.' Then he becomes
personal an