f her temper. He made note of how Mela helplessly spoke of all her
family by their names, as if he were already intimate with them; he
fancied that if he could get that in skillfully, it would be a valuable
color in his study; the English lord whom she should astonish with it
began to form himself out of the dramatic nebulosity in his mind, and
to whirl on a definite orbit in American society. But he was puzzled
to decide whether Mela's willingness to take him into her confidence
on short notice was typical or personal: the trait of a daughter of the
natural-gas millionaire, or a foible of her own.

Beaton talked with Christine the greater part of the evening that
was left after the concert. He was very grave, and took the tone of a
fatherly friend; he spoke guardedly of the people present, and moderated
the severity of some of Christine's judgments of their looks and
costumes. He did this out of a sort of unreasoned allegiance to
Margaret, whom he was in the mood of wishing to please by being very
kind and good, as she always was. He had the sense also of atoning
by this behavior for some reckless things he had said before that to
Christine; he put on a sad, reproving air with her, and gave her the
feeling of being held in check.

She chafed at it, and said, glancing at Margaret in talk with her
brother, "I don't think Miss Vance is so very pretty, do you?"

"I never think whether she's pretty or not," said Becton, with dreamy,
affectation. "She is merely perfect. Does she know your brother?"

"So she says. I didn't suppose Conrad ever went anywhere, except to
tenement-houses."

"It might have been there," Becton suggested. "She goes among friendless
people everywhere."

"Maybe that's the reason she came to see us!" said Christine.

Becton looked at her with his smouldering eyes, and felt the wish to
say, "Yes, it was exactly that," but he only allowed himself to deny the
possibility of any such motive in that case. He added: "I am so glad you
know her, Miss Dryfoos. I never met Miss Vance without feeling myself
better and truer, somehow; or the wish to be so."

"And you think we might be improved, too?" Christine retorted. "Well, I
must say you're not very flattering, Mr. Becton, anyway."

Becton would have liked to answer her according to her cattishness, with
a good clawing sarcasm that would leave its smart in her pride; but he
was being good, and he could not change all at once. Besides, the girl's
attit