"For you know," said Betty, "the French are very particular about a young woman traveling alone, but we did have a hunt to find someone coming to Boston. Otherwise M'sieur Henri—you see how apt I am in French—could not have accompanied me."
M. de la Maur was a very nice-looking young man, not as tall as Cary, but with a graceful and manly figure, soft dark eyes, and hair that just missed being black, a clear complexion and fine color, and a small line of mustache. As to manners he was really charming, and so well-read that Mr. Winthrop Adams took to him at once. He was conversant with Voltaire and Rousseau, the plays of Racine and Molière, and the causes that had led to the French Revolution, and had been in Paris through the famous "Hundred Days." Of course he was bitter against Napoleon.
The inheritance part was soon settled. Doris would have about three thousand dollars. But De la Maur took a great fancy to Boston, and the Royall family approved of him. Mr. and Mrs. Sargent had returned this fall and the old house was a center of attractive gayeties.
"Do you know, I think Cousin Henri is in love with Betty," said Doris, with a feminine habit of guessing at love matters. "But she insists she will never live abroad, and Cousin Henri thinks Paris is the center of the world."
"How will they manage?"
Doris laughed. She did not just see herself.
But Betty's romance came to light presently. It had begun during her winter in New York, but it had not run smoothly. Betty had a rather quick wit and was fond of teasing, and there had been "differences" not easily settled. Mr. Harman Gaynor had risen to the distinction of a partnership in the King firm, and on meeting Betty again, with the young Frenchman at her elbow, had presented his claim in such a way that Betty yielded. When Mr. Gaynor came to Boston to have a conference with Mrs. Leverett—for fathers and mothers still had authority in such matters—Betty's engagement was announced and the marriage set for spring.
Somehow it was a delightful winter. But after a little one person began to feel strangely apprehensive, and this was Cary Adams.
"I suppose Doris and her third- or fourth-cousin will make a match?" Madam Royall said one evening when they had been playing morris and she had won the rubber. "How can you let her go away?"
"She will never leave father," exclaimed Cary confidently.