It was a coup-de-thÉÂtre, falling as pat as if prearranged, an unthinkable accident; the melodrama was becoming entirely too melodramatic, according to Doctor Vardaman's notion. "Good Heavens!" he said to himself, irritated; "this sort of thing doesn't happen—it has no business to happen!" He had what is perhaps the best tact in the world, the tact of a kind heart; but a plain man's experience does not prepare him for moments of such awkwardness, and the doctor's self-possession for once left him in the lurch. He advanced to meet Mrs. Pallinder, blunderingly putting on his eye-glasses, and blunderingly dropping them again to the length of their black silk ribbon, stuttering out a welcome, apprehensive of Steven's next move, out of patience with the whole grotesque and intolerable situation, and fearful that he showed it. Mrs. Pallinder could hardly have failed to overhear something of what was going forward; Steven's loud voice had been raised almost to its furthest pitch, and Gwynne's, if he was more self-contained, was still forcible and distinct enough. Neither one could at once adjust his threatening brows to a placid, scarcely even a natural expression, and, for that matter, the silence betrayed as much as their speech. She would have needed to be blind or deaf not to know that her presence came amiss—and blind and deaf Mrs. Pallinder promptly became! It was a feat; her assumption of unconsciousness was too perfect, but, if Gwynne and the doctor were undeceived, they were still profoundly grateful, and Steven was reduced to a kind of pathetic diffidence. The old man felt, in his dim way, that he had no arms against this dazzling feminine creature; her manners, her dress, even her delicate and finished beauty frightened him; he might as well plan to sue a fairy for rent as this detached and brilliant personage. "Gwynne could have let the poor old boy go in peace," thought Doctor Vardaman, observing Steven's altered bearing; "he never would have faced Mrs. Pallinder—I doubt if he could have stood up to the colonel!"

"Don't get up, gentlemen, don't stand for just me!" said Mrs. Pallinder, looking around on everybody and beginning to loosen her furs. "Oh, Mr. Gwynne, what a nice surprise to find you here! Doctor Vardaman, you didn't tell me you were expecting Mr. Gwynne. You see I'm an old story to the doctor, Mr. Gwynne, I drop in almost every day—I wonder he doesn't run at the sight of me—it must be a relief as well as a pleasure to him to have you come in once in a while. Why don't you come to see me, ever? We're so lonely out here—the colonel and I depend on the doctor. Nobody ever comes to see two rusty old creatures like us. Nobody but you, that is, Mr. Peters, you treat us with the respect due our age." She gave him a laughing glance; Gwynne knelt down, reddening and incoherent, to take off her overshoes. The doctor had space to reflect that a pretty woman, be she never so well or so long married, seldom wholly ceases to be a coquette. And all this while Steven stood, spellbound into silence, waiting for someone else to sit down. He would have liked to be gallant, cynical, daring, epigrammatic; Steven's notions of society were founded on Bulwer-Lytton's novels, with a dash of Reade, Disraeli, and Charles Lever. He had revolved more than one graceful yet stinging speech for the humbling of the Pallinders, figuring them brought down to a species of admiring submission. Lo, the hour was arrived, but where was the man? All his eloquence had stolen away; he was taken at unawares, tongue-tied in an awkwardness that at once incensed and humiliated him. He almost envied Gwynne his uncalculated ease.

"I had a letter from Mazie this morning, doctor," said Mrs. Pallinder, resolutely keeping the conversation going, and including Steven, as it were, by main force. "My daughter, you know, Mr. Gwynne. You've been at your country-place all winter, haven't you?" It was thus that Mrs. Pallinder picturesquely referred to Steven's ramshackle residence; and on her lips the phrase had a richness that pleased him ineffably. "Then you don't know that my daughter has been away nearly two months—she went a little after the holidays—and, oh, Mr. Gwynne, did you hear about the robbery?"

"She don't have to make talk about the weather—trust a woman!" said the doctor inwardly, both satirical and admiring. He had an instant of suspense, wondering what use Steven would make of his opportunity—and Steven was as mild as a lamb! He cleared his throat, and said yes, he had heard about the robbery—they didn't get anything after all, did they? He understood—that is, the paper said—he hadn't been in town to talk to anybody—that they were after Mrs. Pallinder's diamonds. There had been a picture in the paper of the necklace—he was glad they hadn't got anything.

"Why, I didn't know you approved of diamonds, Mr. Gwynne, I wouldn't have dared to wear mine before you," said Mrs. Pallinder, tempting Providence. "Everybody says you're so severe and critical—and—and like all the rest of you men—you laugh at us poor women shamefully, yes, and tyrannise over us, too, you know you do!" she went on, displaying a discernment for which nobody would have given her credit.

"Madame," said Steven, highly flattered; "you mistake me—beauty unadorned——"

"Oh, but Mr. Gwynne, I'm not in that class! Now come up to dinner to-night, and I'll put on every diamond I have, and you'll see I'll look the better for it." She raised her hand. "But don't involve me in an argument—I can't hold my ground with you, you know—you're too clever for me—I remember the last time, when you demolished me utterly—you told me we didn't need money to get along—think of that, Doctor Vardaman, he actually told me we didn't need to use money at all, 'the circulating medium,' wasn't that what you called it, Mr. Gwynne? See how well I remember! And, Doctor, before he got through, he persuaded me, sure enough, that we didn't need money—I believed him—at least I had nothing to say!"

Now how, how, I ask the unprejudiced and fair-minded observer, how could any gentleman—of the name of Gwynne—come at so winningly simple a woman as Mrs. Pallinder with a low question of rent? "Pay or quit" indeed! The thing was inconceivable, the moment inappropriate.

"You will come to dinner, won't you, Mr. Gwynne? Mr. Peters, I've a crow to pick with you, for never bringing him. Oh, I know you hate society, Mr. Gwynne, but just for once——"

Steven faltered; he would have accepted the invitation in another moment—and if he had, who knows how this story might have ended?—but Doctor Vardaman intervened briskly.

"Steven's got to stay here, madame, I asked him first," he said, and clapped the other on the shoulder. Perhaps the doctor was a shade more cordial even than his nature prompted; he felt a great pity for Steven, and a certain shame at the cheap and flimsy devices by which his poor old friend could be overpowered. Mrs. Pallinder made a little mouth at him.

"You always have your way, Doctor, you've gotten the better of me ever so many times. You've got Huddesley, for instance," she said, not disdaining to bestow an oeillade on the servant as he stood before her, offering sherry in the doctor's little old trumpet-shaped glasses; he acknowledged the compliment by a respectful grin. "And I'm simply having the most awful time—you don't know of a good cook, do you, Huddesley?"

"No, ma'am. Hi don't know hanybody 'ere, ma'am," said Huddesley, with a faintly superior air; and passed on to Gwynne with his silver tray. It was true; he held himself apart from, and rather above, other servants. The doctor had often remarked it with an amused sympathy.

"Don't you? Isn't that a pity—I want so much to get settled in the kitchen before Mazie comes home—well, if you hear of anyone, you'll remember me, Huddesley, won't you?" Mrs. Pallinder held her glass in one hand, and shook a letter out of her muff with the other. "Mazie's letter, Doctor Vardaman—she'll be back in a week—she's going to bring a friend—the most English name—one of those hyphenated names, you know. Her father's one of the secretaries at the Legation. Where—oh, here it is. 'Muriel' isn't that English? But just listen to the rest of it!—'Ponsonby-Baxter.' Her father is Sir Julian—no, it's Lucien—no, Mr. Peters, I believe my eyes are failing—can you make out what that word is?"

Gwynne, after a solemn inspection, pronounced it to be Llewellyn.

"I notice all these young men read my daughter's handwriting a great deal better than I can, for some mysterious reason, Mr. Gwynne," said Mrs. Pallinder pointedly, to Steven, with her pretty laugh. And Steven actually laughed, too! Where was his animosity? Where his anathemas? He was at ease, mild, pleased, interested. In fact, Mrs. Pallinder, looking hardly a day over thirty-five, with her fresh voice, her softly bright eyes, her trim and supple figure, was an impossible sort of person for the rÔle of mother. There was a charming absurdity in her continual half-humorous, half-sentimental allusions to her years and infirmities. "When they get here, I'm thinking of having a little company in the house, Mr. Peters," she went on, with a confidential glance that magically comprehended everybody in the room. "Some of the girls, like Kitty Oldham, for instance, and your cousin Marian, of course, if her mother will let her come—I always say, Mr. Gwynne, that it's no wonder all the girls in your family are so well-bred and have such lovely manners—Gwynne manners, Colonel Pallinder calls them—it's no wonder they're all that way, they've had such careful mothers, and such training! It's my despair—I'll never make Mazie that way! I should like to go to school to Mrs. Horace Gwynne myself for a while, only she wouldn't have an old thing like me around, trying to copy those beautiful, finished ways she has—the most elegant woman I know! I think a little party in the house like that will make it pleasant for Miss—Miss Baxter, I suppose we'll call her—the whole name's a little too much—Ponsonby-Baxter! And now the colonel says he'll have to have some men in the house in self-defence. Such a houseful of women! It bores a man, I really think—oh, now, you needn't look that way, Mr. Gwynne, you know it bores men sometimes to have too many women around. So we want to have some of the young men, too—of course you, Mr. Peters, and do you think Mr. Lewis would come? And then there's Mr. Taylor—the one you all call J. B., I mean. There're those three large rooms in the wing at the back, and the small one over the hall—plenty of room, don't you think so, Mr. Gwynne? You ought to know how many the house will hold."

Steven looked important and considered. He remembered when Governor Gwynne had entertained the Whig Campaign Committee in—in—he forgot the year, but it was when Van Buren was elected; every room in the house had been occupied, and cots in the library—you could put ten cots in the library—oh, easily ten, end to end, you know——

"Cots! Oh, I don't think we'll need cots, you know, with young ladies in the party——"

Steven did not hear her. He was launched on an accurate description of the festivities, to which Mrs. Pallinder listened with a caressing attention. How much had she overheard? Or how much guessed? Possibly she would have been as painstakingly gracious to Steven in any event; to look her best, to act her best, was Mrs. Pallinder's trade, and you may trust me it was not always an easy one. "So interesting, isn't it? Oh, it's all very well for you to smile, Doctor Vardaman, you remember all this, and it seems very ordinary to you, no doubt. But it's rarely one hears such reminiscences—you've met so many celebrated people, Mr. Gwynne—the Governor knew everybody, of course, in his position, and then he was a famous man himself. Oh, now I'm here, and have a chance at last, I want you to tell me again about that time the Governor gave away the crimson velvet waistcoat with gold bees embroidered on it—don't you remember, you told it to me the first time we met, and I tried to tell it to the colonel afterwards, but I got it all mixed up. He gave it to Tom Corwin, didn't he? And then the darky waiter got hold of it somehow, and wore it to the party? I laughed so when I came to that part, I couldn't go on with the story——"

Doctor Vardaman listened between relief and a singularly unreasonable resentment; the business of pacifying Steven seemed ludicrously easy, now. His weaknesses and the adroitness with which they were approached, were alike contemptible. Anything, of course, he admitted unwillingly, anything was better than having a scene; they should be thankful they were so well past that danger. Yet he wondered privately what Gwynne thought of this dexterous jockeying; a woman's performances in what she chooses to consider the art of diplomacy unveiled, seldom fail of moving the masculine onlooker to mingled wonder, scorn, and pity. The creature has the cunning of her feebleness; how she does juggle with honour and decency! How lightly she trips it along the unstable wire! What capital she makes of her toy emotions, her sham beliefs and unbeliefs! There is even something admirable in her serene assurance that the end always justifies the means.

Steven may not have talked himself, or been talked, into a complete forgetfulness of his errand; but at least the evil hour was a while postponed. He saw Mrs. Pallinder leave the house escorted by Gwynne through the falling dusk, with genial unconcern; and reiterated to the doctor as they sat at table that evening his conviction that Mrs. Pallinder was a very polished lady! Thus did the afternoon finish; never was there a tamer sequel to a more alarming prelude. If the doctor had received some disquieting revelations, he could still put them from his mind as no affair of his; and if a vexed anxiety about Gwynne lurked within him, it needed no great effort to stifle or banish that, too, momentarily, at any rate. The boy knew what he was about—laissez faire! he thought, and surrendered himself to a long evening of Steven and the circulating medium with thankfulness and even some amusement.

"You—you're ever so kind to poor old Cousin Steven, Mrs. Pallinder," Gwynne said to her, with a good deal of feeling, as they parted in the shadow of the Parthenon front. His voice trembled a little; and perhaps the lady let him hold her hand a trifle longer than etiquette prescribes.

"My dear boy," she said with gentle emphasis, "my dear boy, don't I know—— If there is any way I can think of to make a person like that happier, wouldn't I gladly do it? That seems to me a very small thing—a woman's duty—what else are we for? I would do it for you anyhow, even if I didn't feel so sorry for him." She melted into the house without waiting to gauge the effect of this touching speech, and the young man went off down the avenue with his head in the stars.

All very wrong and very improper, no doubt! But, on the whole, Gwynne's conduct, it seems to me, was most edifying—a pattern for any youth in his position. If Mrs. Pallinder had been the angel he thought her, he could not have borne himself toward her with more respect. A young man's first love, or let us call it, his first amorous fancy, is free from grossness. There was something spiritual and exalted in Gwynne's devotion; I believe he figured himself, foolishly and egotistically enough, her knight, faithful without hope of reward, and gloried in his anguish. If he stood between her and the all-too-righteous exactions of his relatives and co-heirs, if he shielded her from the vials of their wrath, at the cost of some squirmings of conscience, still I am loath to blame him.

There was, of course, no excuse for him, yet—— Mrs. Pallinder was old enough to be his mother, and married to boot; but she was a very beautiful woman, and he was softhearted and sentimental, and had had a harsh and loveless life. How can I sit in judgment on him? Was I so wise at twenty-four? For Mrs. Pallinder herself, I say and stick to it, she was a perfectly good woman; having discovered that she could twist Gwynne around her finger, she cannot be blamed, in the circumstances, for twisting him. The men may well sneer at our tools, but we must even use the tools you let us have, gentlemen, and sometimes you thrust the haft into our hands. No woman can make a fool of a man, I think, unless the man lends himself whole-heartedly to the job. And there are times when she goes at it with little relish.

Was it pleasant for Mrs. Pallinder to blarney Gwynne into forgetfulness? Did she enjoy listening to old Steven's dreary, everlasting talk? I think that mean necessity galled her at times as much as it would have the highest-minded reader of this page. We must suppose she loved her swindling rascal of a husband, for I detect a dingy loyalty in her method of supporting him. So he cleaves to her and cherishes her, a woman cares not a jot whether her husband be honest or not; she will uphold him by such sorry arts as he himself will look upon with disfavour. So terrific is her moral obliquity that she will lie, wheedle, cozen, cheat, with an unruffled mind to protect or further him; displaying a distorted integrity of purpose that compels our grudging admiration. Let anyone who doubts these statements ask the wives and mothers who unsparingly condemn Mrs. Pallinder's line of conduct, what they would have had her do? Give up the game, and so betray her husband's interests, or engage in a little harmless flirtation to put off the hour of his reckoning? You will find that these virtuous ladies will dodge the question utterly. They will indignantly and scornfully reject either course—yet they will not be able to think of any other, and therein you have your answer. I remember once hearing Doctor Vardaman solemnly declare and vow that he believed nine-tenths of the shiftless, incompetent, scoundrelly men in the world were kept going in their profitless or criminal careers solely by the co-operation of some fool of a woman—"an honest woman, at that!" he added, with a laugh.

Gwynne walked away in a state of exaltation that obliterated from his mind all such sordid and petty considerations as twenty-four hundred dollars of rent in arrears. At the end of the avenue he turned to look back, and saw a light spring up in the bedroom window he knew to be Mrs. Pallinder's; he walked on slowly, watching it with what high-coloured and high-flown fancies! Miranda, I am afraid, is a name that defeats the muse; but Gwynne continued in this Romeo attitude and meditation until he crashed into a weary, homing labourer, a resident of Bucktown, most probably, faring along through the twilight with a whitewash bucket and brushes.

"Hy-yah! Keerful, cahn't yo'? Yo' 'd oughta look whar yo's g'wine, boss!"

Gwynne started at the words; he ought to look where he was going! He went on, slowly, frowning a little, with his head bent.