(this was his society manner), and upon being presented to
Viola began paying her the most marked and absorbed attention, hopping
briskly from one heavy German compliment to another, quite unaware,
apparently, that she was anything more than a very pretty girl.

He took her out to dinner, with elaborate courtesy, and divided his
attentions between his partner and his hostess with mathematical
precision, beaming now upon Viola, now upon Kate, with such
well-calculated intervals that Serviss broke into a broad smile.

"You find yourself well placed, Dr. Weissmann?"

"Well placed and well pleased," he responded, quickly, "with no thanks
to you, I suspect."

Kate was much relieved by Weissmann's liking for Viola--it made her
party a little less difficult; but she was anxious to have Morton free
to talk with Viola, and to that end drew the good doctor into
conversation with Clarke, who was not at all pleased with his seat,
which was by design at the farthest remove from his psychic. He saw no
reason why they might not have been seated side by side.

As Kate remarked to Marion afterwards, it was a hard team to drive,
for the table was too small to permit anything like private
conversation at either end, and to enter upon general topics was to
start Clarke and Weissmann into dialectic clamor. "I trusted in the
food," she answered to Marion's query. "It was a good dinner and kept
even the preacher silent--part of the time."

Clarke's face was flushed with wine, and his glance, which rested
often on Viola, was not pleasant. He was afraid of her when she shone
thus brightly among careless, worldly, sceptical people. She seemed to
forget her work, her endowments, and to think only of flattering
speeches and caresses. It was all so childish, so foolish in her, so
undignified in one who meant so much to the sin-darkened world.

Mrs. Lambert, on the contrary, was humanly glad (for the moment, at
least) of her daughter's respite from her grave duties, and sat
blandly smiling while the young people talked animatedly on a wide
list of subjects.

Morton was delighted to find that Viola had read a good many books,
not always the best books, but of such variety that her mind was by no
means that of the school-girl. Her experience in life was very slight,
but her hunger to know was keen. He was eager to draw her out on her
morbid side, but, as he had said to Kate, "We must not permit anything
to rob her of one evening of unbroken