hanging back; he wanted to see her in
a front seat; he wanted to see her name in the biggest kind of bills and
her portrait in the windows of the stores. She had genius, there was no
doubt of that, and she would take a new line altogether. She had charm,
and there was a great demand for that nowadays in connexion with new
ideas. There were so many that seemed to have fallen dead for want of
it. She ought to be carried straight ahead; she ought to walk right up
to the top. There was a want of bold action; he didn't see what they
were waiting for. He didn't suppose they were waiting till she was fifty
years old; there were old ones enough in the field. He knew that Miss
Chancellor appreciated the advantage of her girlhood, because Miss
Verena had told him so. Her father was dreadfully slack, and the winter
was ebbing away. Mr. Pardon went so far as to say that if Dr. Tarrant
didn't see his way to do something, he should feel as if he should want
to take hold himself. He expressed a hope at the same time that Olive
had not any views that would lead her to bring her influence to bear to
make Miss Verena hold back; also that she wouldn't consider that he
pressed in too much. He knew that was a charge that people brought
against newspaper-men--that they were rather apt to cross the line. He
only worried because he thought those who were no doubt nearer to Miss
Verena than he could hope to be were not sufficiently alive. He knew
that she had appeared in two or three parlours since that evening at
Miss Birdseye's, and he had heard of the delightful occasion at Miss
Chancellor's own house, where so many of the first families had been
invited to meet her. (This was an allusion to a small luncheon-party
that Olive had given, when Verena discoursed to a dozen matrons and
spinsters, selected by her hostess with infinite consideration and many
spiritual scruples; a report of the affair, presumably from the hand of
the young Matthias, who naturally had not been present, appeared with
extraordinary promptness in an evening-paper.) That was very well so far
as it went, but he wanted something on another scale, something so big
that people would have to go round if they wanted to get past. Then
lowering his voice a little, he mentioned what it was: a lecture in the
Music Hall, at fifty cents a ticket, without her father, right there on
her own basis. He lowered his voice still more and revealed to Miss
Chancellor his innermost thought, ha