be noticed, unless by the person most concerned.

"Do sit down with us, and eat the Welsh rabbit Carleton has been talking
about," said Hannaford. "This is my show. I shall be delighted, and I'm
sure I speak for the ladies."

Madame d'Ambre murmured something, and Mary smiled a more than
ordinarily friendly smile; for she knew that this was the distant cousin
of whom she had heard from Peter, the "Jim" who, in Molly Maxwell's
eyes, was an heroic figure. Peter never tired of telling anecdotes of
Jim's wonderful feats of finance, his coolness and daring in times of
black panic or perilous uncertainty in Wall Street, his scholarly
attainments, of which he never spoke; his passion for music and gardens,
and other contradictory traits such as no one would have expected in a
keen business man. Sometimes Mary had fancied that Peter was a little
inclined to fall in love with Jim Schuyler, perhaps because he was one
of the few men she knew who did not grovel at her feet. Now Mary looked
at the man with intense interest, and could imagine a girl like Molly
Maxwell making him her hero, in spite of the difference between their
ages. Molly was not twenty-one. He must be thirty-eight or forty, and
would have looked hard if it had not been for the blue eyes which might
soften dangerously under certain influences.

Mary's first impulse on hearing his name was to cry out, "Why, your
cousin Molly Maxwell is my best friend!" But something imperatively
stopped her. Deep down under the excitement and pleasure of this
adventure into which fate had plunged her, murmured a little voice,
saying, "You ought not to have come to this place alone, when they all
trusted you to go straight to Florence." And if she were doing wrong and
meant to keep on doing wrong, she must not associate herself with Saint
Ursula-of-the-Lake, in the minds of people here. It would not be fair to
the convent and Reverend Mother, not even fair to Aunt Sara and Elinor,
who believed her to be journeying obediently toward Florence. Thinking
thus, she determined to say nothing of her own life to those she might
meet at Monte Carlo. Soon she would go away, and no real harm would have
been done to any one. As for this supper, if she had lingering doubts
that it was not quite "the thing" to have accepted, the name of Jim
Schuyler chased them away like clouds before the sun. It was like being
with an old friend to have Peter's cousin there; and Dick Carleton was
staying with