phic in telling
of his acquaintance with Mrs. Durgin.

XVIII.

After all, it was rather a simple-hearted thing of Westover to have
either hoped or feared very much for the Vostrands. Society, in the
sense of good society, can always take care of itself, and does so
perfectly. In the case of Mrs. Vostrand some ladies who liked Westover
and wished to be civil to him asked her and her daughter to other
afternoon teas, shook hands with them at their coming, and said, when
they went, they were sorry they must be going so soon. In the crowds
people recognized them now and then, both of those who had met them
at Westover's studio, and of those who had met them at Florence and
Lausanne. But if these were merely people of fashion they were readily,
rid of the Vostrands, whom the dullest among them quickly perceived not
to be of their own sort, somehow. Many of the ladies of Westover's class
made Genevieve promise to let them paint her; and her beauty and her
grace availed for several large dances at the houses of more daring
spirits, where the daughters made a duty of getting partners for her,
and discharged it conscientiously. But there never was an approach to
more intimate hospitalities, and toward the end of February, when good
society in Boston goes southward to indulge a Lenten grief at Old Point
Comfort, Genevieve had so many vacant afternoons and evenings at
her disposal that she could not have truthfully pleaded a previous
engagement to the invitations Jeff Durgin made her. They were chiefly
for the theatre, and Westover saw him with her and her mother at
different plays; he wondered how Jeff had caught on to the notion of
asking Mrs. Vostrand to come with them.

Jeff's introductions at Westover's tea had not been many, and they had
not availed him at all. He had been asked to no Boston houses, and when
other students, whom he knew, were going in to dances, the whole winter
he was socially as quiet, but for the Vostrands, as at the Mid-year
Examinations. Westover could not resent the neglect of society in his
case, and he could not find that he quite regretted it; but he thought
it characteristically nice of Mrs. Vostrand to make as much of the
friendless fellow as she fitly could. He had no doubt but her tact would
be equal to his management in every way, and that she could easily see
to it that he did not become embarrassing to her daughter or herself.

One day, after the east wind had ceased to blow the bre