Chapter XVI. Out Among Shadows.




The expression of Ida Mayhew's face was cold and defiant on the
following day. She did not attend church with her mother, but remained
all the morning in her room. She not only avoided opportunities
of speaking to Van Berg when coming down to dinner and during the
afternoon, but she would not even look towards him; and her manner
towards her cousin also was decidedly icy.

"I don't know what is the matter with Ida," her mother remarked to
Stanton; "she has acted so strangely of late."

"It's the old complaint, I imagine," he replied with a shrug.

"What's that?"

"Caprice."

"Oh, well! she's no worse than other pretty, fashionable girls,"
said Miss Mayhew, carelessly.

Stanton, in his anger on the previous evening, had not spoken of
his cousin to Van Berg in a very complimentary way; but the artist
remembered that the young man himself was not in a condition to
form either a correct or charitable judgment; while the fact that
Ida, as a result of his remonstrance, had gone directly to her room,