oes n't begin anywhere. I told him that if he would n't come
with me I would come alone, and he said I might do as I chose--that he
was not in a humor for making visits. I wanted to come to you very much;
I had been thinking about it all day; and I am so fond of a visit like
this in the evening, without being invited. Then I thought perhaps you
had a salon--does n't every one in Paris have a salon? I tried to have a
salon in New York, only Gordon said it would n't do. He said it was n't
in our manners. Is this a salon to-night, Mrs. Vivian? Oh, do say it
is; I should like so much to see Captain Lovelock in a salon! By good
fortune he happened to have been dining with us; so I told him he must
bring me here. I told you I would explain, Captain Lovelock," she added,
"and I hope you think I have made it clear."

The Captain had turned very red during this wandering discourse. He sat
pulling his beard and shifting the position which, with his stalwart
person, he had taken up on a little gilded chair--a piece of furniture
which every now and then gave a delicate creak.

"I always understand you well enough till you begin to explain," he
rejoined, with a candid, even if embarrassed, laugh. "Then, by Jove,
I 'm quite in the woods. You see such a lot more in things than most
people. Does n't she, Miss Vivian?"

"Blanche has a fine imagination," said Angela, smiling frankly at the
charming visitor.

When Blanche was fairly adrift upon the current of her articulate
reflections, it was the habit of her companions--indeed, it was a sort
of tacit agreement among them--simply to make a circle and admire. They
sat about and looked at her--yawning, perhaps, a little at times, but
on the whole very well entertained, and often exchanging a smiling
commentary with each other. She looked at them, smiled at them each,
in succession. Every one had his turn, and this always helped to give
Blanche an audience. Incoherent and aimless as much of her talk was, she
never looked prettier than in the attitude of improvisation--or rather,
I should say, than in the hundred attitudes which she assumed at such a
time. Perpetually moving, she was yet constantly graceful, and while
she twisted her body and turned her head, with charming hands that never
ceased to gesticulate, and little, conscious, brilliant eyes that looked
everywhere at once--eyes that seemed to chatter even faster than her
lips--she made you forget the nonsense she poured forth, or