too much heart--like Captain Boyson--or a lack of
coolness, when it really came to the point of grappling with Daphne and
her millions, as in the case of a dozen she could name. Whereby it had
come about that Daphne's attention had been first provoked, then
peremptorily seized by the Englishman; and Mrs. Verrier began now to
suspect that deeper things were really involved.

Certainly there was a good deal to puzzle the spectator. That the
English are a fortune-hunting race may be a popular axiom; but it was
quite possible, after all, that Roger Barnes was not the latest
illustration of it. It was quite possible, also, that he had a
sweet-heart at home, some quiet, Quakerish girl who would never wave in
his face the red flags that Daphne was fond of brandishing. It was
equally possible that he was merely fooling with Daphne--that he had
seen girls he liked better in New York, and was simply killing time till
a sportsman friend of whom he talked should appear on the scene and take
him off to shoot moose and catch trout in the province of Quebec. Mrs.
Verrier realized that, for all his lack of subtlety and the higher
conversation, young Barnes had managed astonishingly to keep his
counsel. His "simplicity," like Daphne's, seemed to be of a special
type.

And yet--there was no doubt that he had devoted himself a great deal.
Washington society had quickly found him out; he had been invited to all
the most fastidious houses, and was immensely in request for picnics and
expeditions. But he had contrived, on the whole, to make all these
opportunities promote the flirtation with Daphne. He had, in fact, been
enough at her beck and call to make her the envy of a young society with
whom the splendid Englishman promised to become the rage, and not enough
to silence or wholly discourage other claimants on his time.

This no doubt accounted for the fact that the two charming Bostonians,
Mrs. Maddison and her daughter, who had but lately arrived in Washington
and made acquaintance with Roger Barnes, were still evidently in
ignorance of what was going on. They were not initiated. They had
invited young Barnes in the innocence of their hearts, without inviting
Daphne Floyd, whom they did not previously know. And the young man had
seen fit to accept their invitation. Hence the jealousy that was clearly
burning in Daphne, that she was not indeed even trying to hide from the
shrewd eyes of her friend.

Mrs. Verrier's advice not to make