er, in New
York, in conversation with Mrs. Luna, of whom he was destined to see a
good deal, he alluded by chance to this repast, to the way her sister
had placed him at table, and to the remark with which she had pointed
out the advantage of his seat.

"That's what they call in Boston being very 'thoughtful,'" Mrs. Luna
said, "giving you the Back Bay (don't you hate the name?) to look at,
and then taking credit for it."

This, however, was in the future; what Basil Ransom actually perceived
was that Miss Chancellor was a signal old maid. That was her quality,
her destiny; nothing could be more distinctly written. There are women
who are unmarried by accident, and others who are unmarried by option;
but Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being.
She was a spinster as Shelley was a lyric poet, or as the month of
August is sultry. She was so essentially a celibate that Ransom found
himself thinking of her as old, though when he came to look at her (as
he said to himself) it was apparent that her years were fewer than his
own. He did not dislike her, she had been so friendly; but, little by
little, she gave him an uneasy feeling--the sense that you could never
be safe with a person who took things so hard. It came over him that it
was because she took things hard she had sought his acquaintance; it had
been because she was strenuous, not because she was genial; she had had
in her eye--and what an extraordinary eye it was!--not a pleasure, but a
duty. She would expect him to be strenuous in return; but he
couldn't--in private life, he couldn't; privacy for Basil Ransom
consisted entirely in what he called "laying off." She was not so plain
on further acquaintance as she had seemed to him at first; even the
young Mississippian had culture enough to see that she was refined. Her
white skin had a singular look of being drawn tightly across her face;
but her features, though sharp and irregular, were delicate in a fashion
that suggested good breeding. Their line was perverse, but it was not
poor. The curious tint of her eyes was a living colour; when she turned
it upon you, you thought vaguely of the glitter of green ice. She had
absolutely no figure, and presented a certain appearance of feeling
cold. With all this, there was something very modern and highly
developed in her aspect; she had the advantages as well as the drawbacks
of a nervous organisation. She smiled constantly at her guest, but from
t