I am now."

"I don't doubt it," said Mavick, with another laugh.

"But don't you see this affair upsets all our arrangements? It's very
vexatious."

"I don't see it exactly. By-the-way, what do you think of the escape
suggested by the Spectrum, in the assertion that you and Evelyn had
arranged to go to Europe? The steamer sails tomorrow."

"Think!" exclaimed Carmen. "Do you think I am going to be run, as you
call it, by the newspapers? They run everything else. I'm not politics,
I'm not an institution, I'm not even a revolution. No, I thank you. It
answers my purpose for them to say we have gone."

"I suppose you can keep indoors a few days. As to the reception, I had
arranged my business for it. I may be in Mexico or Honolulu the
following winter."

"Well, we can't have it now. You see that."

"Carmen, I don't care a rap what the public thinks or says. The child's
got to face the world some time, and look out for herself. I fancy she
will not like it as much as you did."

"Very likely. Perhaps I liked it because I had to fight it. Evelyn
never will do that."

"She hasn't the least idea what the world is like."

"Don't you be too sure of that, my dear; you don't understand yet what a
woman feels and knows. You think she only sees and thinks what she is
told. The conceit of men is most amusing about this. Evelyn is deeper
than you think. The discrimination of that child sometimes positively
frightens me--how she sees into things. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if
she actually knew her father and mother!"

"Then she beats me," said Mavick, with another laugh, "and I've been at
it a long time. Carmen, just for fun, tell me a little about your early
life."

"Well"--there was a Madonna-like smile on her lips, and she put out the
toe of her slender foot and appeared to study it for a moment--"
I was intended to be a nun."

"Spanish or French?"

"Just a plain nun. But mamma would not hear of it. Mamma was just a bit
worldly."

"I never should have suspected it," said Mavick, with equal gravity.
"But how did you live in those early days, way back there?"

"Oh!" and Carmen looked up with the most innocent, open-eyed expression,
"we lived on our income."

"Naturally. We all try to do that." The tone in Mavick's voice showed
that he gave it up.

"But, of course," and Carmen was lively again, "it's much nicer to have a
big income that's certain than a small one that is uncertain."

"It would seem so."

"A