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o him." She laughed nervously. "And charm! It's in the very air about him. He can make me follow his lead like a little curly poodle when I'm with him."
"Were you engaged to Delavan Eyre when you met him?"
"Oh, engaged!" returned the girl fretfully. "There was never more than a sort of understanding. A mariage de convenance on both sides, if it ever came off. I am fond of Del, too. But he was South, and the other came like a whirlwind, and I'm--I'm queer about some things," she went on half shamefacedly. "I suppose I'm awfully susceptible to physical impressions. Are all girls that way? Or is that gross and--and underbred?"
"It's part of us, I expect; but we're not all so honest with ourselves. So you decided to throw over Mr. Eyre and marry your Briton."
"Well--yes. The new British Ambassador, who arrives from Japan next week, is Carty's uncle, and we were going to make him stage-manage the wedding, you see. A sort of officially certified elopement."
"More advertisement!" said Miss Van Arsdale coldly. "Really, Miss Welland, if marriage seems to you nothing more than an opportunity to create a newspaper sensation I cannot congratulate you on your prospects."
This time her tone stung. Io Welland's eyes became sullen. But her voice was almost caressingly amiable as she said:
"Tastes differ. It is, I believe, possible to create a sensation in New York society without any newspaper publicity, and without at all meaning or wishing to. At least, it was, fifteen years ago; so I'm told."
Camilla Van Arsdale's face was white and lifeless and still, as she turned it toward the girl.
"You must have been a very precocious five-year-old," she said steadily.
"All the Olneys are precocious. My mother was an Olney, a first cousin of Mrs. Willis Enderby, you know."
"Yes; I remember now."
The malicious smile on the girl's delicate lips faded. "I wish I, hadn't said that,"