? You cannot expect a
young girl to show her inclination before she is asked." And Mrs. Mavick
laughed a little to dispel the seriousness.

"By Jove! that's so, good enough. I'll do it straight out. I'll tell her
to take it or leave it. No, I don't mean that, of course. I'll tell
her that I can't live without her--that sort of thing, you know. And I
can't, that's just the fact."

"You can leave it confidently to her good judgment and to the friendship
of the family for you."

Lord Montague was silent for a moment, and seemed to be looking at a
problem in his shrewd mind. For he had a shrewd mind, which took in the
whole situation, Mrs. Mavick and all, with a perspicacity that would
have astonished that woman of the world.

"There is one thing, perhaps I ought not to say it, but I have seen it,
and it is in my head that it is that--I beg your pardon, madam--that
damned governess."

The shot went home. The suggestion, put into language that could be more
easily comprehended than defended, illuminated Mrs. Mavick's mind in a
flash, seeming to disclose the source of an opposition to her purposes
which secretly irritated her. Doubtless it was the governess. It was her
influence that made Evelyn less pliable and amenable to reason than a
young girl with such social prospects as she had would naturally be.
Besides, how absurd it was that a young lady in society should still
have a governess. A companion? The proper companion for a girl on the
edge of matrimony was her mother!

XXI

This idea, once implanted in Mrs. Mavick's mind, bore speedy fruit. No
one would have accused her of being one of those uncomfortable persons
who are always guided by an inflexible sense of justice, nor could it be
said that she was unintelligently unjust. Facile as she was, in all her
successful life she had never acted upon impulse, but from a conscience
keenly alive to what was just to herself. Miss McDonald was in the way.
And Mrs. Mavick had one quality of good generalship--she acted promptly
on her convictions.

When Mr. Mavick came over next day to spend Sunday in what was called in
print the bosom of his family, he looked very much worn and haggard
and was in an irritated mood. He had been very little in Newport that
summer, the disturbed state of business confining him to the city. And
to a man of his age, New York in midsummer in a panicky season is not a
recreation.

The moment Mrs. Mavick got her husband alone she showe