irit Miss Chancellor listened
to him. Being aware that she was a woman of culture his desire was
simply to supply her with the pabulum that she would expect. She thought
him very inferior; she had heard he was intensely bright, but there was
probably some mistake; there couldn't be any danger for Verena from a
mind that took merely a gossip's view of great tendencies. Besides, he
wasn't half educated, and it was her belief, or at least her hope, that
an educative process was now going on for Verena (under her own
direction) which would enable her to make such a discovery for herself.
Olive had a standing quarrel with the levity, the good-nature, of the
judgements of the day; many of them seemed to her weak to imbecility,
losing sight of all measures and standards, lavishing superlatives,
delighted to be fooled. The age seemed to her relaxed and demoralised,
and I believe she looked to the influx of the great feminine element to
make it feel and speak more sharply.

"Well, it's a privilege to hear you two talk together," Mrs. Tarrant
said to her; "it's what I call real conversation. It isn't often we have
anything so fresh; it makes me feel as if I wanted to join in. I
scarcely know whom to listen to most; Verena seems to be having such a
time with those gentlemen. First I catch one thing and then another; it
seems as if I couldn't take it all in. Perhaps I ought to pay more
attention to Mr. Burrage; I don't want him to think we are not so
cordial as they are in New York."

She decided to draw nearer to the trio on the other side of the room,
for she had perceived (as she devoutly hoped Miss Chancellor had not)
that Verena was endeavouring to persuade either of her companions to go
and talk to her dear friend, and that these unscrupulous young men,
after a glance over their shoulder, appeared to plead for remission, to
intimate that this was not what they had come round for. Selah wandered
out of the room again with his collection of cakes, and Mr. Pardon began
to talk to Olive about Verena, to say that he felt as if he couldn't say
all he did feel with regard to the interest she had shown in her. Olive
could not imagine why he was called upon to say or to feel anything, and
she gave him short answers; while the poor young man, unconscious of his
doom, remarked that he hoped she wasn't going to exercise any influence
that would prevent Miss Tarrant from taking the rank that belonged to
her. He thought there was too much