"So long as you let me sit down by you!" And he dropped, very gallantly,
into a chair on the other side of her.

"I wish you would lose all your property!" she replied, glancing at
Bernard.

"It would be a very small stake," said Captain Lovelock. "Would you
really like to see me reduced to misery?"

While this graceful dialogue rapidly established itself, Miss Vivian
removed her eyes from Longueville's face and turned toward her
mother. But Gordon Wright checked this movement by laying his hand on
Longueville's shoulder and proceeding to introduce his friend.

"This is the accomplished creature, Mr. Bernard Longueville, of whom you
have heard me speak. One of his accomplishments, as you see, is to drop
down from the moon."

"No, I don't drop from the moon," said Bernard, laughing. "I drop
from--Siena!" He offered his hand to Miss Vivian, who for an appreciable
instant hesitated to extend her own. Then she returned his salutation,
without any response to his allusion to Siena.

She declined to take a seat, and said she was tired and preferred to go
home. With this suggestion her mother immediately complied, and the two
ladies appealed to the indulgence of little Miss Evers, who was obliged
to renounce the society of Captain Lovelock. She enjoyed this luxury,
however, on the way to Mrs. Vivian's lodgings, toward which they all
slowly strolled, in the sociable Baden fashion. Longueville might