"Be gone till to-morrow morning," said Mr. Belcher, in a whisper at Mrs.

Dillingham's ear.

"You're a wretch," said the lady.

"You're right--a very miserable wretch. Here you've been playing the devil with a hundred men all day, and I've been looking at you. Is there any article of your apparel that I can have the privilege of kissing?"

Mrs. Dillingham laughed him in his face. Then she took a wilted rose-bud from a nosegay at her breast, and gave it to him.

"My roses are all faded," she said--"worth nothing to me--worth nothing to anybody--except you."

Then she pa.s.sed to the window; to hide her emotion? to hide her duplicity? to change the subject? to give Mr. Belcher a glance at her gracefully retreating figure? to show herself, framed by the window, into a picture for the delight of his devouring eyes?

Mr. Belcher followed her. His hand lightly touched her waist, and she struck it down, as if her own were the velvet paw of a lynx.

"You startled me so!" she said.

"Are you always to be startled so easily?"

"Here? yes."

"Everywhere?"

"Yes. Perhaps so."

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For the perhaps."

"You are easily pleased and grateful for nothing; and, now, tell me who lives opposite to you?"

"A lawyer by the name of James Balfour."

"James Balfour? Why, he's one of my old flames. He ought to have been here to-day. Perhaps he'll be in this evening."

"Not he."

"Why?"

"He has the honor to be an enemy of mine, and knows that I would rather choke him than eat my dinner."

"You men are such savages; but aren't those nice boys on the steps?"

"I happen to know one of them, and I should like to know why he is there, and how he came there. Between you and me, now--strictly between you and me--that boy is the only person that stands between me and--and--a pile of money."

"Is it possible? Which one, now?"

"The larger."

"But, isn't he lovely?"

"He's a Sevenoaks pauper."

"You astonish me."

"I tell you the truth, and Balfour has managed, in some way, to get hold of him, and means to make money out of me by it. I know men. You can't tell me anything about men; and my excellent neighbor will have his hands full, whenever he sees fit to undertake his job."

"Tell me all about it now," said Mrs. Dillingham, her eyes alight with genuine interest.

"Not now, but I'll tell you what I would like to have you do. You have a way of making boys love you, and men too--for that matter--and precious little do they get for it."

"Candid and complimentary," she sighed.

"Well, I've seen you manage with my boys, and I would like to have you try it with him. Meet him in the street, manage to speak to him, get him into your house, make him love you. You can do it. You are bold enough, ingenious enough, and subtle enough to do anything of that kind you will undertake. Some time, if you have him under your influence, you may be of use to me. Some time, he may be glad to hide in your house. No harm can come to you in making his acquaintance."

"Do you know that you are talking very strangely to me?"

"No. I'm talking business. Is that a strange thing to a woman?"

Mrs. Dillingham made no reply, but stood and watched the boys, as they ran up and down the steps in play, with a smile of sympathy upon her face, and genuine admiration of the graceful motions and handsome face and figure of the lad of whom Mr. Belcher had been talking. Her curiosity was piqued, her love of intrigue was appealed to, and she determined to do, at the first convenient opportunity, what Mr. Belcher desired her to do.

Then Mrs. Belcher returned, and the evening, like the afternoon, was devoted to the reception of guests, and when, at last, the clock struck eleven, and Mrs. Dillingham stood bonneted and shawled ready to go home in the carriage that waited at the door, Mrs. Belcher kissed her, while Mr. Belcher looked on in triumph.

"Now, Sarah, haven't we had a nice day?" said he.

"Very pleasant, indeed."

"And haven't I behaved well? Upon my word, I believe I shall have to stand treat to my own abstinence, before I go to bed."

"Yes, you've been wonderfully good," remarked his wife.

"Men are such angels!" said Mrs. Dillingham.

Then Mr. Belcher put on his hat and overcoat, led Mrs. Dillingham to her carriage, got in after her, slammed the door, and drove away.

No sooner were they in the carriage than Mrs. Dillingham went to talking about the little boy, in the most furious manner. Poor Mr.

Belcher could not divert her, could not induce her to change the subject, could not get in a word edgewise, could not put forward a single apology for the kiss he intended to win, did not win his kiss at all. The little journey was ended, the carriage door thrown open by her own hand, and she was out without his help.

"Good-night; don't get out," and she flew up the steps and rang the bell.

Mr. Belcher ordered the coachman to drive him home, and then sank back on his seat, and crowding his lips together, and compressing his disappointment into his familiar expletive, he rode back to his house as rigid in every muscle as if he had been frozen.

"Is there any such thing as a virtuous devil, I wonder," he muttered to himself, as he mounted his steps. "I doubt it; I doubt it."

The next day was icy. Men went slipping along upon the side-walks as carefully as if they were trying to follow a guide through the galleries of Versailles. And in the afternoon a beautiful woman called a boy to her, and begged him to give her his shoulder and help her home. The request was so sweetly made, she expressed her obligations so courteously, she smiled upon him so beautifully, she praised him so ingenuously, she shook his hand at parting so heartily; that he went home all aglow from his heart to his finger's ends.

Mrs. Dillingham had made Harry Benedict's acquaintance, which she managed to keep alive by bows in the street and bows from the window,--managed to keep alive until the lad worshiped her as a sort of divinity and, to win her smiling recognition, would go out of his way a dozen blocks on any errand about the city.