"That's magnanimous. I suppose you and my cousin can manage to
keep the peace between you."

"I think the change will be far more disagreeable to Miss Mayhew
than to me."

"You are very polite to say so. Good-night."

"Well," mused Van Berg, when left to himself; "I've made progress
to-day after a fashion. We have been quite thoroughly introduced--in
fact 'thrown together,' as fate and all her friends will have it.
I might have been weeks in gaining as much insight into her character
as circumstances have given me in a few brief hours. But what
a miserable revelation she has made of herself--cowardice this
morning--fraud this afternoon, and cold selfishness, that can
amuse itself with the mortification and misfortunes of others, this
evening. This is the moral side of the picture. But when I came
to 'speer' around to see whether she had any mind or real culture,
the exhibition was still more pitiable. Ye gods! that a girl can
live to her age and know so little that is worth knowing! She
knows how to dress--that is, how to enhance her physical beauty;
and that, I admit, is a great deal. As far as it goes it is well.
But of the taste of a beautiful and, at the same time, intellectual
and highly cultivated woman, she has no conception; with her it is
a question of flesh and blood only."

"I wonder if it will ever be otherwise? I wonder if her marvellous
beauty, which is now like a budding rose, that partly conceals the
worm in its heart, will soon, like the overblown flower, reveal
so clearly what mars its life that scarcely anything else will be