consummate tacticians the least of women are! It's a pity that they
have to work so often in such dull material as men; they ought always
to have women to operate on. The youngest of them has more wisdom
in human nature than the sages of our sex. I must say, Lurella is
magnanimous, too. She might have taken her revenge on you for pitying
her yesterday when she sat in that warehouse door on the wharf. It
was rather fine in Lurella not to do it. What did she say, Dunham?
What did she talk about? Did she want to know?"

"No!" shouted Dunham. "She talked very well, like any young lady."

"Oh, all young ladies talk well, of course. But what did this one
say? What did she do, except suffer a visible pang of homesickness
at the sight of unattainable poultry? Come, you have represented
the interview with Miss Blood as one of great brilliancy."

"I haven't," said Dunham. "I have done nothing of the kind. Her
talk was like any pleasant talk; it was refined and simple, and--
unobtrusive."

"That is, it was in no way remarkable," observed Staniford, with a
laugh. "I expected something better of Lurella; I expected something
salient. Well, never mind. She's behaved well by you, seeing what
a goose you had made of yourself. She behaved like a lady, and I've
noticed that she eats with her fork. It often happens in the country
that you find the women practicing some of the arts of civilization,
while their men folk are still sunk in barbaric uses. Lurella, I see,
is a social creature; she was born for society, as you were, and I
suppose you will be thrown a good deal together. We're all likely to
be associated rather familiarly, under the circumstances. But I wish