--one could ask
to a little gathering without the risk of a painful discord. Then the
distant relationship to Miss Stanley gave them a slight but pleasant
sense of proprietorship in the girl. They had their little dreams about
her.

Mrs. Pramlay received them in the pretty chintz drawing-room, which
opened by French windows on the trim garden, with its croquet lawn, its
tennis-net in the middle distance, and its remote rose alley lined
with smart dahlias and flaming sunflowers. Her eye met Miss Stanley's
understandingly, and she was if anything a trifle more affectionate in
her greeting to Ann Veronica. Then Ann Veronica passed on toward the
tea in the garden, which was dotted with the elite of Morningside Park
society, and there she was pounced upon by Lady Palsworthy and given tea
and led about. Across the lawn and hovering indecisively, Ann Veronica
saw and immediately affected not to see Mr. Manning, Lady Palsworthy's
nephew, a tall young man of seven-and-thirty with a handsome,
thoughtful, impassive face, a full black mustache, and a certain heavy
luxuriousness of gesture. The party resolved itself for Ann Veronica
into a game in which she manoeuvred unostentatiously and finally
unsuccessfully to avoid talking alone with this gentleman.

Mr. Manning had shown on previous occasions that he found Ann Veronica
interesting and that he wished to interest her. He was a civil servant
of some standing, and after a previous conversation upon aesthetics of
a sententious, nebulous, and sympathetic character, he had sent her a
small volume, which he described as the fruits of his leisure and which
was as a matter of fact rather carefully finished verse. It dealt with
fine aspects of Mr. Manning's feelings, and as Ann Veronica's mind
was still largely engaged with fundamentals and found no pleasure in
metrical forms, she had not as yet cut its pages. So that as she saw him
she remarked to herself very faintly but definitely, "Oh, golly!" and
set up a campaign of avoidance that Mr. Manning at last broke down by
coming directly at her as she talked with the vicar's aunt about some of
the details of the alleged smell of the new church lamps. He did not so
much cut into this conversation as loom over it, for he was a tall, if
rather studiously stooping, man.

The face that looked down upon Ann Veronica was full of amiable
intention. "Splendid you are looking to-day, Miss Stanley," he said.
"How well and jolly you must be feeling