is age, New York in midsummer in a panicky season is not a
recreation.

The moment Mrs. Mavick got her husband alone she showed a lively
solicitude about his health.

"I suppose it has been dreadfully hot in the city?"

"Hot enough. Everything makes it hot."

"Has anything gone wrong? Has that odious Ault turned up again?"

"Turned up is the word. Half the time that man is a mole, half the time
a bull in a china-shop. He sails up to you bearing your own flag, and
when he gets aboard he shows the skull and cross-bones."

"Is it so bad as that?"

"As bad as what? He is a bad lot, but he is just an adventurer--a
Napoleon who will get his Waterloo before fall. Don't bother about
things you don't understand. How are things down here?"

"Going swimmingly." "So I judged by the bills. How is the lord?"

"Now don't be vulgar, Tom. You must keep up your end. Lord Montague is
very nice; he is a great favorite here."

"Does Evelyn like him?"

"Yes, she likes him; she likes him very much."

"She didn't show it to me."

"No, she is awfully shy. And she is rather afraid of him, the big title
and all that. And then she has never been accustomed to act for herself.
She is old enough to be independent and to take her place in the world.
At her age I was not in leading-strings."

"I should say not," said Mavick.

"Except in obedience to my mother," continued Carmen, not deigning to
notice the sarcasm. "And I've been thinking that McDonald--"

"So you want to get rid of her?"

"What a brutal way of putting it! No. But if Evelyn is ever to be
self-reliant it is time she should depend more on herself. You know I am
devoted to McDonald. And, what is more, I am used to her. I wasn't
thinking of her. You don't realize that Evelyn is a young lady in
society, and it has become ridiculous for her to still have a governess.
Everybody would say so."

"Well, call her a companion."

"Ah, don't you see it would be the same? She would still be under her
influence and not able to act for herself."

"What are you going to do? Turn her adrift after eighteen--what is it,
seventeen?--years of faithful service?"

"How brutally you put it. I'm going to tell McDonald just how it is.
She is a sensible woman, and she will see that it is for Evelyn's good.
And then it happens very luckily. Mrs. Van Cortlandt asked me last
winter if I wouldn't let her have McDonald for her little girl when we
were through with her. She knew, of course, th