Mrs. Boykin's social resources--and when the men returned to the
drawing-room, Durham found her still fanning in his sisters the
flame of an easily kindled enthusiasm. Since she could hardly have
been held by the intrinsic interest of their converse, the sight
gave him another swift intuition of the working of those hidden
forces with which Fanny de Malrive felt herself encompassed. But
when Madame de Treymes, at his approach, let him see that it was for
him she had been reserving herself, he felt that so graceful an
impulse needed no special explanation. She had the art of making it
seem quite natural that they should move away together to the
remotest of Mrs. Boykin's far-drawn salons, and that there, in a
glaring privacy of brocade and ormolu, she should turn to him with a
smile which avowed her intentional quest of seclusion.

"Confess that I have done a great deal for you!" she exclaimed,
making room for him on a sofa judiciously screened from the
observation of the other rooms.

"In coming to dine with my cousin?" he enquired, answering her
smile.

"Let us say, in giving you this half hour."

"For that I am duly grateful--and shall be still more so when I know
what it contains for me."

"Ah, I am not sure. You will not like what I am going to say."

"Shall I not?" he rejoined, changing colour.