ns, candidly. "I would much sooner remain
at home."

"I wonder," Violet says, "why you have taken such a fancy to me? Is it
because you think Madame Lepelletier treated you badly? After all, you
ought to have known----" and she pauses, with a furtive glance at
Cecil, who is deep in the delights of chocolate ice. "You were so much
younger."

"I have been a fool," says the young man, candidly. "But you need not
take her part. If you could have seen the way she dropped down upon us
last summer, the swift dazzle she made everywhere! I had to drive her
out and play the agreeable, for Floyd couldn't stir without Cecil, and
he was full of business beside. Then she never seemed much older
than--why, Gertrude was ages older than either of us. So she smiled and
smiled, and I was an idiot. She was always asking me to come, and the
truth is, she is a handsome and fascinating woman, and will have
adoration. Look at Ward Dyckman. He is only twenty-six, and he is wild
about her, but he has piles of money." And Eugene sighs--for the money.

"Yet she never seems to _do_ anything," reflects Violet.

"To _do_ would be vulgar and would not fascinate well-bred people. It
is in her eyes, in her voice, in the very atmosphere about her, and she
_is_ wonderfully beautiful. She isn't the spider, she does not spin a
net, but she looks at the mouse out of great, soft eyes, and he comes
nearer, nearer, and she plays with him, until he is dull and maimed and
tiresome, when she gently pushes him away, and is done with him."

Violet shivers. How strange that Mr. Floyd Grandon should not have
yielded to her fascination!

"There, let her go," says Eugene, loftily. "And since I don't care to
see her to-night, nor the two cream-and-sugar Dyckman girls,
nor--anybody, we will stay at home."

Violet makes no further protest. Cecil is sleepy, and begs to go to
bed, so Violet plays and sings, and they talk out on the porch in the
soft summer night. Eugene indulges in some romantic views, slipping now
and then into affected cynicism, out of which Violet gently draws him.
He is so much nicer than she used to think him. And, indeed, now that
Marcia is gone, there is none of that shameful bickering. She almost
wishes Mrs. Grandon _mere_ could remain away indefinitely; they would
all be quietly happy.

At the Dyckmans' they discuss the Grandon defection. Laura Dyckman
thinks Eugene Grandon such a "divine dancer," and to-night young men
are at a premium, t