"Yes, I've noticed that," said Mavick, with a good-natured laugh, in
which Carmen joined, "and those times usually coincide with the times
that you want something specially."

"You ought to be ashamed to take me up that way. I just wanted to talk
about the coming-out reception. You know I had come over to your opinion
that seventeen was perhaps better than eighteen, considering Evelyn's
maturity. When I was seventeen I was just as good as I am now."

"I don't doubt it," said Mavick, with another laugh.

"But don't you see this affair upsets all our arrangements? It's very
vexatious."

"I don't see it exactly. By-the-way, what do you think of the escape
suggested by the Spectrum, in the assertion that you and Evelyn had
arranged to go to Europe? The steamer sails tomorrow."

"Think!" exclaimed Carmen. "Do you think I am going to be run, as you
call it, by the newspapers? They run everything else. I'm not politics,
I'm not an institution, I'm not even a revolution. No, I thank you. It
answers my purpose for them to say we have gone."

"I suppose you can keep indoors a few days. As to the reception, I had
arranged my business for it. I may be in Mexico or Honolulu the
following winter."

"Well, we can't have it now. You see that."

"Carmen, I don't care a rap what the public thinks or says. The child's