a matter of course, and when she declined an
invitation her guest was at liberty to go with the ever faithful Mrs.
Hofer.

For three weeks Isabel did little thinking. She went to the ranch once a
week for the day only, spent an occasional hour with Lady Victoria. Even
then she was barely reminded of Gwynne. She was busy during every moment
while in the country, and her relative was no more communicative than of
yore. Only once did Victoria remark casually, that, by a sort of poetic
justice, Gwynne was detained in the south with a sprained ankle, and was
hurling maledictions at fate from the classic shades of Santa Barbara.
Isabel grudgingly admired the restraint with which he denied himself the
possible solace of correspondence with herself, and it crossed her mind
once or twice that the young man might have the understanding of women
that proceeded from instinct, if not from study. But she deliberately
dismissed him, and although his name was frequently mentioned in her
presence, she soon ceased to turn cold, and forced him to flit with a
hundred others across the surface of her mind.

For the first time in her life she flirted desperately, and with others
besides young Hofer. She was quite wickedly indifferent to consequences,
and was inspired to woo the fickle goddess of popularity. The peace and
charm and intellectual relief of the Trennahan home did much to modify
her shrinking from realities, and the effort to please, and the
abandonment to the purely frivolous instincts of youth, were the only
aides her beauty needed to achieve that popularity she had abstractly
desired the night Gwynne brought her the stars. She no longer desired it
at all, but she disguised this fact, and reaped the reward.

Moreover, although her analytical faculty slept in the darkest wing of
her brain, the mere fact that she was stormily loved and desired by a
man to whom she was powerfully attracted, that for a moment she had been
awake and eager in his embrace, had warmed her blood and given her an
insolent magnetism that she had never possessed before.

Through Mr. Colton she received a formal request from Gwynne to dedicate
the Otis Building--named in honor of the creator of the family
fortunes--on the day the last of the foundation-stones was laid. In
company with half a hundred other young people in automobiles, she
astonished South of Market Street, one beautiful spring day--the spring
was making desperate assaults upon the linger