em, conjoined with them in emulation, in
unsightly strainings and clappings and shoutings, in wordy, windy
iteration of inanities. Worst of all was the idea that she should have
expressed such a congregation to itself so acceptably, have been
acclaimed and applauded by hoarse throats, have been lifted up, to all
the vulgar multitude, as the queen of the occasion. He made the
reflexion, afterwards, that he was singularly ill-grounded in his wrath,
inasmuch as it was none of his business what use Miss Tarrant chose to
make of her energies, and, in addition to this, nothing else was to have
been expected of her. But that reflexion was absent now, and in its
absence he saw only the fact that his companion had been odiously
perverted. "Well, Miss Tarrant," he said, with a deeper seriousness than
showed in his voice, "I am forced to the painful conclusion that you are
simply ruined."

"Ruined? Ruined yourself!"

"Oh, I know the kind of women that Miss Chancellor had at her house, and
what a group you must have made when you looked out at the Back Bay! It
depresses me very much to think of it."

"We made a lovely, interesting group, and if we had had a spare minute
we would have been photographed," Verena said.

This led him to ask her if she had ever subjected herself to the
process; and she answered that a photographer had been after her as soon
as she got back from Europe, and that she had sat for him, and that
there were certain shops in Boston where her portrait could be obtained.
She gave him this information very simply, without pretence of vagueness
of knowledge, spoke of the matter rather respectfully, indeed, as if it
might be of some importance; and when he said that he should go and buy
one of the little pictures as soon as he returned to town, contented
herself with replying, "Well, be sure you pick out a good one!" He had
not been altogether without a hope that she would offer to give him one,
with her name written beneath, which was a mode of acquisition he would
greatly have preferred; but this, evidently, had not occurred to her,
and now, as they went further, her thought was following a different
train. That was proved by her remarking, at the end of a silence,
inconsequently, "Well, it showed I have a great use!" As he stared,
wondering what she meant, she explained that she referred to the
brilliancy of her success at the convention. "It proved I have a great
use," she repeated, "and that is all I care