bligations to her
for coming. When she reached the street she found she was deeply
agitated, but not with a sense of weakness; she hurried along, excited
and dismayed, feeling that her insufferable conscience was bristling
like some irritated animal, that a magnificent offer had really been
made to Verena, and that there was no way for her to persuade herself
she might be silent about it. Of course, if Verena should be tempted by
the idea of being made so much of by the Burrages, the danger of Basil
Ransom getting any kind of hold on her would cease to be pressing. That
was what was present to Olive as she walked along, and that was what
made her nervous, conscious only of this problem that had suddenly
turned the bright day to greyness, heedless of the sophisticated-looking
people who passed her on the wide Fifth Avenue pavement. It had risen in
her mind the day before, planted first by Mrs. Burrage's note; and then,
as we know, she had vaguely entertained the conception, asking Verena
whether she would make the visit if it were again to be pressed upon
them. It had been pressed, certainly, and the terms of the problem were
now so much sharper that they seemed cruel. What had been in her own
mind was that if Verena should appear to lend herself to the Burrages
Basil Ransom might be discouraged--might think that, shabby and poor,
there was no chance for him as against people with every advantage of
fortune and position. She didn't see him relax his purpose so easily;
she knew she didn't believe he was of that pusillanimous fibre. Still,
it was a chance, and any chance that might help her had been worth
considering. At present she saw it was a question not of Verena's
lending herself, but of a positive gift, or at least of a bargain in
which the terms would be immensely liberal. It would be impossible to
use the Burrages as a shelter on the assumption that they were not
dangerous, for they became dangerous from the moment they set up as
sympathisers, took the ground that what they offered the girl was simply
a boundless opportunity. It came back to Olive, again and again, that
this was, and could only be, fantastic and false; but it was always
possible that Verena might not think it so, might trust them all the
way. When Miss Chancellor had a pair of alternatives to consider, a
question of duty to study, she put a kind of passion into it--felt,
above all, that the matter must be settled that very hour, before
anything in