Jeff filled his glass; Alan looked at it, faltered, and then drank it
off. The talk began again between the young men, but it left Westover
out, and he had to go away. Whether Jeff was getting Lynde beyond himself
from the love of mischief, such as had prompted him to tease little
children in his boyhood, or was trying to ingratiate himself with the
young fellow through his weakness, or doing him harm out of mere
thoughtlessness, Westover came away very unhappy at what he had seen. His
unhappiness connected itself so distinctly with Lynde's family that he
went and sat down beside Miss Lynde from an obscure impulse of
compassion, and tried to talk with her. It would not have been so hard if
she were merely deaf, for she had the skill of deaf people in arranging
the conversation so that a nodded yes or no would be all that was needed
to carry it forward. But to Westover she was terribly dull, and he was
gasping, as in an exhausted receiver, when Bessie came up with a smile of
radiant recognition for his extremity. She got rid of her partner, and
devoted herself at once to Westover. "How good of you!" she said, without
giving him the pain of an awkward disclaimer.

He could counter in equal sincerity and ambiguity, "How beautiful of
you."

"Yes," she said, "I am looking rather well, tonight; but don't you think
effective would have been a better word?" She smiled across her aunt at
him out of a cloud of pink, from which her thin shoulders and slender
neck emerged, and her arms, gloved to the top, fell into her lap; one of
them seemed to terminate naturally in the fan which sensitively shared
the inquiescence of her person.

"I will say effective, too, if you insist," said Westover. "But at the