the place, like
silver, and that Miss Chancellor guaranteed her absolute punctuality
to-night."

"Well, that's all that is required," said Ransom, at hazard; and he put
out his hand, in farewell, to Mrs. Luna.

"Do you desert me already?" she demanded, giving him a glance which
would have embarrassed any spectator but a reporter of the _Vesper_.

"I have fifty things to do; you must excuse me." He was nervous,
restless, his heart was beating much faster than usual; he couldn't
stand still, and he had no compunction whatever about leaving her to get
rid, by herself, of Mr. Pardon.

This gentleman continued to mix in the conversation, possibly from the
hope that if he should linger either Miss Tarrant or Miss Chancellor
would make her appearance. "Every seat in the Hall is sold; the crowd is
expected to be immense. When our Boston public _does_ take an idea!" Mr.
Pardon exclaimed.

Ransom only wanted to get away, and in order to facilitate his release
by implying that in such a case he should see her again, he said to Mrs.
Luna, rather hypocritically, from the threshold, "You had really better
come to-night."

"I am not like the Boston public--I don't take an idea!" she replied.

"Do you mean to say you are not going?" cried Mr. Pardon, with widely
open eyes, clapping his hand again to his pocket. "Don't you regard her
as a wonderful genius?"

Mrs. Luna was sorely tried, and the vexation of seeing Ransom slip away
from her with his thoughts visibly on Verena, leaving her face to face
with the odious newspaper man, whose presence made passionate protest
impossible--the annoyance of seeing everything and every one mock at her
and fail to compensate her was such that she lost her head, while
rashness leaped to her lips and jerked out the answer--"No indeed; I
think her a vulgar idiot!"

"Ah, madam, I should never permit myself to print that!" Ransom heard
Mr. Pardon rejoin reproachfully, as he dropped the _portiere_ of the
drawing-room.

XLI

He walked about for the next two hours, walked all over Boston, heedless
of his course, and conscious only of an unwillingness to return to his
hotel and an inability to eat his dinner or rest his weary legs. He had
been roaming in very much the same desperate fashion, at once eager and
purposeless, for many days before he left New York, and he knew that his
agitation and suspense must wear themselves out. At present they pressed
him more than ever; they had beco