"Charming, my dear."

Margaret was so pleased that she tried to do something very amiable.

"That was funny, I mean what you said about the Syrian girl at the
Dominie's," she volunteered, and laughed, without making a crease in
her fair little face. She was really adorable, far more than pretty,
leaning back with one slender, yellow-draped leg crossed over the
other, revealing the glittering slippers and one silken ankle.

"It does sound somewhat queer, a Syrian girl fainting in the
Dominie's house," said Wilbur. "She could not have found a house
where her sex, of any nationality, are in less repute."

"Then you don't think that Alice Mendon--?" There was a faint note
of jealousy in Margaret's voice, although she herself had not the
slightest interest in Dominie von Rosen or any man, except her
husband; and in him only because he was her husband. As the husband
of her wonderful self, he acquired a certain claim to respect, even
affection, such as she had to bestow.

"I don't think Alice Mendon would take up with the Dominie, if he
would with her," responded Wilbur Edes hastily. Margaret did not
understand his way of speaking, but just then she looked at herself
in an opposite mirror, and pulled down one side of her blond
pompadour a bit, which softened her face, and added to its
allurement. The truth was Wilbur Edes, before he met Margaret, had
proposed to Alice Mendon. Alice had never told, and he had not,
consequently Margaret did not know. Had she known it would have made
no difference, since she could not imagine any man preferring Alice