"I should think it might be as well," a.s.sented the other, with a sniff.

"But she would hardly be here!"

"She is really her governess, a very ill-bred and rude young person,"

said Mrs. Nailor.

The other sighed.

"Society is getting so democratic now, one might say, so mixed, that there is no telling whom one may meet nowadays."

"No, indeed," pursued Mrs. Nailor. "I do not at all approve of governesses and such persons being invited out. I think the English way much the better. There the governess never dreams of coming to the table except to luncheon, and her friends are the housekeeper and the butler."

Keith, wearied of the ba.n.a.lities at his ear, crossed over to where Mrs.

Wentworth stood a little apart from the other ladies. One or two men were talking to her. She was evidently pleased to see him. She talked volubly, and with just that pitch in her voice that betrays a subcurrent of excitement.

From time to time she glanced about her, appearing to Keith to search the faces of the other women. Keith wondered if it were a fancy of his that they were holding a little aloof from her. Presently Mrs. Nailor came up and spoke to her.

Keith backed away a little, and found himself mixed up with the train of a lady behind him, a dainty thing of white muslin.

He apologized in some confusion, and turning, found himself looking into Lois Huntington's eyes. For a bare moment he was in a sort of maze. Then the expression in her face dispelled it. She held out her hand, and he clasped it; and before he had withdrawn his eyes from hers, he knew that his peace was made, and Mrs. Wickersham's drawing-room had become another place. This, then, was what Alice Lancaster meant when she spoke of the peacemakers.

"It does not in the least matter about the dress, I a.s.sure you," she said in reply to his apology. "My dressmaker, Lois Huntington, can repair it so that you will not know it has been torn. It was only a ruse of mine to attract your attention." She was trying to speak lightly. "I thought you were not going to speak to me at all. It seems to be a way you have of treating your old friends--your oldest friends,"

she laughed.

"Oh, the insolence of youth!" said Keith, wishing to keep away from a serious subject. "Let us settle this question of age here and now. I say you are seven years old."

"You are a Bourbon," she said; "you neither forget nor learn. Look at me. How old do I look?"

"Seven--"

"No. Look."

"I am looking-would I were Argus! You look like--perpetual Youth."

And she did. She was dressed in pure white. Her dark eyes were soft and gentle, yet with mischief lurking in them, and her straight brows, almost black, added to their l.u.s.tre. Her dark hair was brushed back from her white forehead, and as she turned, Keith noted again, as he had done the first time he met her, the fine profile and the beautiful lines of her round throat, with the curves below it, as white as snow. "Perpetual Youth," he murmured.

"And do you know what you are?" she challenged him.

"Yes; Age."

"No. Flattery. But I am proof. I have learned that men are deceivers ever. You positively refused to see me when I had left word with the servant that I would see you if you called." She gave him a swift little glance to see how he took her charge.

"I did nothing of the kind. I will admit that I should know where you are by instinct, as Sir John knew the Prince; but I did not expect you to insist on my doing so. How was I to know you were in the city?"

"The servant told you."

"The servant told me?"

As Keith's brow puckered in the effort to unravel the mystery, she nodded.

"Um-hum--I heard him. I was at the head of the stair."

Keith tapped his head.

"It's old age--sheer senility."

"'No; I don't want to see the other lady,'" she said, mimicking him so exactly that he opened his eyes wide.

"I am staying at Mrs. Wentworth's--Cousin Norman's," she continued, with a little change of expression and the least little lift of her head.

Keith's expression, perhaps, changed slightly, too, for she added quietly: "Cousin Louise had to have some one with her, and I am teaching the children. I am the governess."

"I have always said that children nowadays have all the best things,"

said Keith, desirous to get off delicate ground. "You know, some one has said he never ate a ripe peach in his life: when he was a boy the grown-ups had them, and since he grew up the children have them all."

She laughed.

"I am very severe, I a.s.sure you."

"You look it. I should think you might be Herod himself."

She smiled, and then the smile died out, and she glanced around her.

"I owe you an apology," she said in a lowered voice.

"For what?"

"For--mis--for not answering your letters. But I mis--I don't know how to say what I wish. Won't you accept it without an explanation?" She held out her hand and gave him the least little flitting glance of appeal.

"I will," said Keith. "With all my heart."

"Thank you. I have been very unhappy about it." She breathed a little sigh of relief, which Keith caught.

Mrs. Lancaster did not arrive until all the other guests had been there a little while. But when she entered she had never looked handsomer. As soon as she had greeted her hostess, her eyes swept around the room, and in their circuit rested for a moment on Keith, who was talking to Lois.

She gave them a charming smile. The next moment, however, her eyes stole that way again, and this time they bore a graver expression. The admiration that filled the younger girl's eyes was unbounded and unfeigned.

"Don't you think she is the handsomest woman in the room?" she asked, with a nod toward Mrs. Lancaster.

Keith was suddenly conscious that he did not wish to commit himself to such praise. She was certainly very handsome, he admitted, but there were others who would pa.s.s muster, too, in a beauty show.

"Oh, but I know you must think so; every one says you do," Lois urged, with a swift glance up at him, which, somehow, Keith would have liked to avoid.

"Then, I suppose it must be so; for every one knows my innermost thoughts. But I think she was more beautiful when she was younger. I do not know what it is; but there is something in Society that, after a few years, takes away the bloom of ingenuousness and puts in its place just the least little shade of unreality."

"I know what you mean; but she is so beautiful that one would never notice it. What a power such beauty is! I should be afraid of it." Lois was speaking almost to herself, and Keith, as she was deeply absorbed in observing Mrs. Lancaster, gazed at her with renewed interest.

"I'd so much rather be loved for myself'," the girl went on earnestly.

"I think it is one of the compensations that those who want such beauty have-"