he charming creature with
whom he had exchanged that final speechless smile the evening before. He
was more glad to see her than if she had been an old friend, for it
seemed to him that she had suddenly become a new one. "The delightful
girl," he said to himself; "she smiles at me as if she liked me!" He
could not know that this was fatuous, that she smiled so at every one;
the first time she saw people she treated them as if she recognised
them. Moreover, she did not seat herself again in his honour; she let it
be seen that she was still going. The three stood there together in the
middle of the long, characteristic room, and, for the first time in her
life, Olive Chancellor chose not to introduce two persons who met under
her roof. She hated Europe, but she could be European if it were
necessary. Neither of her companions had an idea that in leaving them
simply planted face to face (the terror of the American heart) she had
so high a warrant; and presently Basil Ransom felt that he didn't care
whether he were introduced or not, for the greatness of an evil didn't
matter if the remedy were equally great.

"Miss Tarrant won't be surprised if I recognise her--if I take the
liberty to speak to her. She is a public character; she must pay the
penalty of her distinction." These words he boldly addressed to the
girl, with his most gallant Southern manner, saying to himself meanwhile
that she was prettier still by daylight.

"Oh, a great many gentlemen have spoken to me," Verena said. "There were
quite a number at Topeka----" And her phrase lost itself in her look at
Olive, as if she were wondering what was the matter with her.

"Now, I am afraid you are going the very moment I appear," Ransom went
on. "Do you know that's very cruel to me? I know what your ideas
are--you expressed them last night in such beautiful language; of course
you convinced me. I am ashamed of being a man; but I am, and I can't
help it, and I'll do penance any way you may prescribe. _Must_ she go,
Miss Olive?" he asked of his cousin. "Do you flee before the individual
male?" And he turned to Verena.

This young lady gave a laugh that resembled speech in liquid fusion. "Oh
no; I like the individual!"

As an incarnation of a "movement," Ransom thought her more and more
singular, and he wondered how she came to be closeted so soon with his
kinswoman, to whom, only a few hours before, she had been a complete
stranger. These, however, were doubtless th