with the air of one
accustomed to have her advances gratefully received, if she might sit
by her. The girl took March's vacant chair, where she had her cup of
bouillon, which she continued to hold untasted in her hand after the
first sip. Mrs. March did the same with hers, and at the moment she had
got very tired of doing it, Burnamy came by, for the hundredth time that
day, and gave her a hundredth bow with a hundredth smile. He perceived
that she wished to get rid of her cup, and he sprang to her relief.

"May I take yours too?" he said very passively to Miss Triscoe.

"You are very good." she answered, and gave it.

Mrs. March with a casual air suggested, "Do you know Mr. Burnamy, Miss
Triscoe?" The girl said a few civil things, but Burnamy did not try to
make talk with her while he remained a few moments before Mrs. March.
The pivotal girl came in sight, tilting and turning in a rare moment of
isolation at the corner of the music-room, and he bowed abruptly, and
hurried off to join her.

Miss Triscoe did not linger; she alleged the necessity of looking up
her father, and went away with a smile so friendly that Mrs. March might
easily have construed it to mean that no blame attached itself to her in
Miss Triscoe's mind.

"Then you don't feel that it was a very distinct success?" her husband
asked on his return.

"Not on the surface," she said.

"Better let ill enough alone," he advised.

She did not heed him. "All the same she cares for him. The very fact
that she was so cold shows that."

"And do you think her being cold will make him care for her?"

"If she wants it to."

XIV.

At dinner that day the question of 'The Maiden Knight' was debated among
the noises and silences of the band. Young Mrs. Leffers had brought the
book to the table with her; she said she had not been able to lay it
down before the last horn sounded; in fact she could have been seen
reading it to her husband where he sat under the same shawl, the whole
afternoon.

"Don't you think it's perfectly fascinating," she asked Mrs. Adding,
with her petted mouth.

"Well," said the widow, doubtfully, "it's nearly a week since I read it,
and I've had time to get over the glow."

"Oh, I could just read it forever!" the bride exclaimed.

"I like a book," said her husband, "that takes me out of myself. I don't
want to think when I'm reading."

March was going to attack this ideal, but he reflected in time that Mr.
Leffers had r