oy it. Mr. Latimer knows just
how to entertain her, and he entertains her for his own pleasure as
well. He likes to see her wondering eyes open in their sweet, fearless
purity; he watches the loveliest of color as it ripples over her face,
the dimples that seem to play hide-and-seek, and the rare glint of her
waving hair as it catches the light in its dun gold reflexes.

"I know two people who would rave over you," he says, in a very low
tone, just for her ear, "Mr. and Mrs. Dick Ascott. This was their
house, you know, and they could not have paid Madame Lepelletier a
higher compliment than renting to her,--it is the apple of their eye,
the chosen of their heart! They are both artists and _we_ think
charming people, but Dick was resolved his wife should have some
Parisian art culture. They are to be back in two years, and I hope you
will not change in the slightest particular. I command you to remain
just as you are."

"Two years," she repeats, with a dreamy smile that is entrancing, and
presently glances up with such a sweet, shy look, that John Latimer,
not often moved by women's smiles, rather suspecting wiles, feels
tempted to kiss her on the spot.

"I hope," she says afterwards, with the most delicious seriousness,
"that I shall not disappoint any one two years from this time."

"Don't you dare to," he replies, warningly.

Gertrude and the professor are really the stars of this morning's
luncheon, and they are having such an engrossing conversation on the
other side of the table that no one but Marcia remarks this little
episode. Everything to her savors of flirtation. Marcia Grandon could
not entertain a simple, honest regard for any one; she is always
studying effects, and she is hungry for admiration. All the small
artifices she uses she suspects in every one else, and now in her
secret heart she accuses Mrs. Floyd of flying at high game.

Take it altogether, it is a decidedly charming little party. Mrs.
Vandervoort, though not a handsome woman, is at the very height of
fashion, and is particularly well-bred, as the Delancys are not modern
people, but have the blue blood of some centuries without much
admixture; there are a few others: madame makes her parties so select
that it is a favor to be invited to one.

She seeks out Violet just as they are beginning to disperse.

"My dear Mrs. Grandon," she says, in that persuasive voice that wins
even against the will, "I have been planning a pleasure for you