going to be for all of them, her beaming look seemed to say;
and then, suddenly, the small pink fingers he had been
kissing were laid on the one flaw in the circle, on the one
point which must be settled before Effie could, with
complete unqualified assurance, admit the new-comer to full
equality with the other gods of her Olympus.

"And is Sophy awfully happy about it too?" she had asked,
loosening her hold on Darrow's neck to tilt back her head
and include her mother in her questioning look.

"Why, dearest, didn't you see she was?" Anna had exclaimed,
leaning to the group with radiant eyes.

"I think I should like to ask her," the child rejoined,
after a minute's shy consideration; and as Darrow set her
down her mother laughed: "Do, darling, do! Run off at once,
and tell her we expect her to be awfully happy too."

The scene had been succeeded by others less poignant but
almost as trying. Darrow cursed his luck in having, at such
a moment, to run the gauntlet of a houseful of interested
observers. The state of being "engaged", in itself an
absurd enough predicament, even to a man only intermittently
exposed, became intolerable under the continuous scrutiny of
a small circle quivering with participation. Darrow was
furthermore aware that, though the case of the other couple
ought to have made his own less conspicuous, it was rather
they who found a refuge in the shadow of his prominence.
Madame de Chantelle, though she had consented to Owen's