I am a painted Jezebel. Try to reform him; a person from
Mississippi is sure to be all wrong. I shall be back very late; we are
going to a theatre-party; that's why we dine so early. Good-bye, Mr.
Ransom," Mrs. Luna continued, gathering up the feathery white shawl
which added to the volume of her fairness. "I hope you are going to stay
a little, so that you may judge us for yourself. I should like you to
see Newton, too; he is a noble little nature, and I want some advice
about him. You only stay to-morrow? Why, what's the use of that? Well,
mind you come and see me in New York; I shall be sure to be part of the
winter there. I shall send you a card; I won't let you off. Don't come
out; my sister has the first claim. Olive, why don't you take him to
your female convention?" Mrs. Luna's familiarity extended even to her
sister; she remarked to Miss Chancellor that she looked as if she were
got up for a sea-voyage. "I am glad I haven't opinions that prevent my
dressing in the evening!" she declared from the doorway. "The amount of
thought they give to their clothing, the people who are afraid of
looking frivolous!"

II

Whether much or little consideration had been directed to the result,
Miss Chancellor certainly would not have incurred this reproach. She was
habited in a plain dark dress, without any ornaments, and her smooth,
colourless hair was confined as carefully as that of her sister was
encouraged to stray. She had instantly seated herself, and while Mrs.
Luna talked she kept her eyes on the ground, glancing even less toward
Basil Ransom than toward that woman of many words. The young man was
therefore free to look at her; a contemplation which showed him that she
was agitated and trying to conceal it. He wondered why she was agitated,
not foreseeing that he was destined to discover, later, that her nature
was like a skiff in a stormy sea. Even after her sister had passed out
of the room she sat there with her eyes turned away, as if there had
been a spell upon her which forbade her to raise them. Miss Olive
Chancellor, it may be confided to the reader, to whom in the course of
our history I shall be under the necessity of imparting much occult
information, was subject to fits of tragic shyness, during which she was
unable to meet even her own eyes in the mirror. One of these fits had
suddenly seized her now, without any obvious cause, though, indeed, Mrs.
Luna had made it worse by becoming instantly so p