At least the guests were continuing to talk, though in the interruption from the doorbell and the answering of it by Papa, Adele evidently had lost out. For as the divided attention of Selina came back to the circle about her, Miss Boswell for whom all these endeavors and proprieties had been evoked, was doing her best to defend the utilitarian beauty of woolen gloves and ear-muffs, propounded upon her original proposition by spectacled Mr. Welling, backed by Mr. Cannon of the white vest.

The while Selina heard Papa urging Marcus to give up his umbrella and to take off his cape which she knew to be a waterproof cloth voluminous affair to which he was much addicted. It gave one a sense of storm and stress of weather and downpour without, whereas in reality it was a dry and mild starlit night. It was merely of a piece with Marcus.

And here he came strolling in, casual as always. Marcus was tall, lithe and thin. One lock of black hair fell anywhere, according to the moment, over onto his long, thin-flanked face, to be brushed aside continually by his long fingers, out of his deliberately roaming and observing blue eyes, the remaining black locks throwing themselves anyhow backward onto his old velvet coat collar. You never knew what a Bruce might do, but you could be sure he would do something extraordinary. Papa's overtures in the hall had only partly prevailed, for Marcus coming strolling in, had retained his strapped and buckled Arctic overshoes.

"Well, Selina? How are you little people?" This to Maud and Juliette, Amanthus and Adele whom he had seen grow up along with Selina. The meanwhile, Cousin Marcus was cheerfully and as a matter of course shaking hands with—of all persons—Miss Boswell! "Everybody don't get up, everybody don't change places, I went around to the hotel to find you," this to Miss Boswell, "and your aunt telling me you were here, I trusted Selina for grace and followed."

Marcus on terms of evident and easy friendliness with Miss Pocahontas? Marcus, whom Selina had repudiated!

But in the meanwhile everybody had gotten up, and everybody was changing places. In the readjustment Marcus was found to be in possession of the chair next to Miss Boswell. His keen eyes patently taking in much, roved delightedly, seeing among other things as it proved, the well-set-up and good-looking Mr. Wingham hasten to carry a chair for himself to that bit of obscurity lighted by the sunny hair, the dimples, and the violet eyes of Amanthus. Saw him arrive with his chair just in time to circumvent Mr. Tate who was doing likewise. Saw Maud look incensed as Mr. Wingham contentedly sat himself down in this haven where he would be, saw Selina and Juliette look indignant, Adele incredulous. Else why should those keen eyes of Marcus thus roving, grow delighted as with a comprehending sense of the situation? But they roamed on, their owner accompanying their survey with comment:

"So, it's a conversazione, Selina, Cousin Robert tells me? In the name of eloquence, Algernon Charles Biggs, how did you get in it?"

The worm turned. Big Algy reddened angrily. "Culpepper here got me in. He swore it was a candy-pulling!"

Mr. Cannon snorted; Mr. Welling it was who this time coughed, and tall Mr. Tate, who failing a place by Amanthus had come back and taken his seat in the circle, looked sincerely annoyed.

"Apropos of Mr. Algernon," said Miss Boswell, still well-meaning, seeing that Algy had been pointed to her as a card by her young hostesses. She paused. Did the desperate look at her here by the goaded Algy enlighten her as to something being wrong. "No, not Mr. Algernon at all." She went on a little hurriedly. "Mr. Bruce," she turned about to Marcus next to her. "Mr. Bruce here and I are old friends," evidently she meant to be certain of her ground this time, "thanks to his winters for his newspaper in our little city during the legislatures. We've quarreled over such questions as these too often for me not to know where he stands. So, self-avowed seeker after the pleasing even to expedience, what are we to accept as the definition of beauty?"

"Exactly," said Marcus cheerfully. "I would call it one thing, you or Miss Maud or Algy here, another," he paused, to give Algy full time to start and be quieted down by Culpepper, "while Mr. Welling and Mr. Cannon stand ready to confute the lot of us. Still, we'll try it around, Mr. Wingham," those eyes of Marcus had been roving as he spoke, "give us an idea of what you hold it to be?"

"It—" said Mr. Wingham suddenly and a little tartly as he bandied the impersonal and unenlightening pronoun thus thrust upon him, sparring for time. He had been contentedly talking to Amanthus and as was evident, had lost the trend of the discussion he had been asked here to partake in. "It—er—I should claim, is, admitting of course, the term to be indefinite—" the poor gentleman was floundering.

"It's so conceded to be," from Marcus encouragingly.

But everybody rushed to say something here to spare the guest, Maud and Juliette as to beauty being beauty, Miss Pocahontas as to ethics and utility being beauty, Bliss, put to it by Mr. Welling and Mr. Cannon, as to beauty being vanity, and Adele with final arrival as to "the Puritans' greatest exponent, Milton, being proof and utterance of the beauty and poetry at the moral heart of Puritanism!" Which indeed she owed to Maud and the "Prepared Debates." And in this general chorus, Mr. Wingham and his impersonal pronoun was lost sight of, or at any rate, sound of.

At half-past ten when the removal of the screen by Papa disclosed Mamma with her precious bits of Honiton lace on her head and at her throat, behind the chocolate pitcher, and Auntie in her black silk and long gold chain behind the coffee urn, Mr. Wingham was found to be lost again as well as Amanthus and this time in a more literal sense.

Selina had seen it when it happened, and so had Maud, Juliette and Adele. One fancied Mr. Tate was aware of it, and so it now proved, was Marcus.

"Wingham," his best and mellowest voice called as the company arose to adjourn to the back parlor, "that cosy corner of sofa and lamp under the stairs is very well for tÊte-À-tÊte, but how about bread and butter?"

Nor did Amanthus and Mr. Wingham look too well pleased as they came in.

As Marcus who was on his good behavior, carried cups and passed sandwiches, he leaned presently and spoke to Miss Boswell, just as Selina arrived with cake:

"Your coupÉ has come, Pocahontas, may I go out and send it away and you walk back to the hotel with me?" This from Marcus whom Selina had deemed unworthy the occasion!

It happened, however, that Marcus took Amanthus to her home at the corner first. Mr. Wingham went promptly after supper with somewhat the air of one who has been unfairly treated. Bliss who still was in the sulks went speedily too. Mr. Tate even while he struggled against the coercion, was borne off bodily by Mr. Welling and Mr. Cannon whose delight seemed to be in circumventing him. The two of them in leaving made what Auntie would have called their devoirs, both for themselves and him, though he struggled to make his own.

"Minerva over Venus ever, Miss Selina," from Mr. Cannon of the white vest. "It's for that we're carrying Tate off. After his recovery from this temporary dereliction, he'll be grateful to us."

"Ear-muffs and woolen gloves for the soul's sake, every time, Miss Selina," from Mr. Welling of the spectacles, "and as a rule you would have had Tate heart and soul with you. He's been adamant to dimples before, so it must have been the hair or the eyes. We're hurrying him off for his safe-keeping."

Culpepper and Algy already were gone, taking Maud and Adele to their doors across the street. Juliette here by Selina's side in the hall seeing the last of their guests off, was to spend the night with her.

Marcus happening out from the parlor along with Amanthus at this moment, and discovering, so to speak, an empty hall, took in the situation. If he had noted a little chill in manner toward Amanthus since supper on the part of her four friends—and what was there ever that Marcus did not note?—he recalled that chill now and evidently coupled it with her uncavaliered situation. It is so men unfairly judge of all women.

He went and found her cloak on the rack and brought it. Humming as he did so, he broke forth lightly into words:

"Morality thou deadly bane,"

He put the soft and hooded wrap about her nicely, for him even carefully and prettily,

"Thy tens of thousands hast thou slain."

He picked up his slouch hat and donned his disreputable old cape,

"Vain is his hope whose stay and trust is
In moral mercy, truth and justice!"

Having rooted out his umbrella and tucked Amanthus, pretty thing, onto his arm, Marcus here paused within the doorway and said backward over his shoulder mellowly to Selina and Juliette.

"Kindly explain for me to Miss Boswell that it will take me just three minutes to go and return. She's talking in the parlor with your mother and your aunt, Selina. Amanthus," still more mellowly, "shall I make an utterance for you as you are leaving? Your single contribution to the evening's parley? That, so far as I have been present to observe, you have been a silently eloquent and irrefutable argument for the affirmative? Don't ask Amanthus what irrefutable means, my cousin Selina, nor brisk Juliette? That were unworthy of you, and unkind!"

Juliette turned indignantly upon Selina as Marcus and Amanthus left. "It's we who're left in the ungenerous attitudes!" hotly. "How did we get there?"

Later, after Marcus in his old hat and shabby cape had returned, and again had departed, with Miss Boswell in his keeping, Selina cast herself upon her mother and burst into tears.

"Are we as impossible, as ridiculous and absurd, as we are to judge we are from what they all imply?" she sobbed hotly.

"More so, even, no doubt," from Juliette bitterly.

A caressing arm and hand came around Selina's shoulder as she wept on her little mother's bosom, the hand of her father.

"But even so, delightful," said that gentleman comfortingly, "far more delightful, if an onlooker may testify, than you'll ever quite know."

"We sent the borrowed dress home to Anna," said Auntie. "Let's pack the mental furbelows up and send them over to Maud."

"We'll borrow them again," came from Selina in muffled tones of bitterness. "We never learn."

"Or lend her ours, let's be quite honest," from little Juliette.