"We saw you and mamma talking very earnestly together, Mrs. Varick," she said, with a brief side-glance toward Kindelon, "and so we concluded that it would be safe to leave you undisturbed for at least a little while. But mamma is curiously unsafe as an entertainer." This was said with an extremely sweet and amiable look in Mrs. Dares's direction. "She sometimes loses herself in gentle rhapsodies. My sister Martha and I have to keep watch upon her by turns, out of pity for the unliberated victims."
"I need not tell you how I scorn the injustice of that charge, my dear Mrs. Dares!" here cried Kindelon. "It would be late in the day to inform you of my devoted admiration!"
"I fear it is early in the day for me to speak of mine," said Pauline; but the laugh that went with her words (or was it the words themselves?) rang sincerely, and took from what she said the levity of mere idle compliment.
"But you will surely care to meet some of our friends, Mrs. Varick," now said Cora Dares.
"Oh, by all means, yes!" exclaimed Pauline. The girl's limpid, steadfast eyes fascinated her, and she gazed into their lucent depths longer than she was perhaps aware. It was almost like an abrupt awakening to find that she and Mrs. Dares's youngest daughter were standing alone together, Kindelon and the elder lady having gone. "I want very much to meet many of your friends," Pauline proceeded. She put her head a little on one side, while her lips broke into a smile that her companion appeared to understand perfectly and to answer with mute, gay intelligence. "I suppose you have heard all about me and my grand project, just as your charming mother has heard, Miss Dares?"
"Oh, yes," returned Cora.
"And you think it practicable?"
"I think it praiseworthy."
"Which means that I shall fail."
Cora looked humorously troubled. "If you do, it will not be your fault. I am not doubtful on that point."