"Envy me, Pauline?"
"Oh, yes; you have settled matters so absolutely. You have no misgivings, no distrusts. You are so magnificently secure."
"I don't understand," politely faltered Mrs. Poughkeepsie. She looked inquiringly at Courtlandt.
"It is metaphysics," Courtlandt at once said. "They are a branch of study in which Pauline has made great progress." His face remained so completely placid and controlled that he might have been giving the number of a residence or recording the last quotation in stocks.
Sallie had become absorbed in staring here and there, just as her mother had been a brief while ago; Mrs. Poughkeepsie was at a little distance from her niece; Courtlandt stood close at Pauline's side, so that the latter could ask him, in an undertone full of curt, covert imperiousness,—
"Did you come here to say and do rude things?"
"I never say nor do rude things if I can help it," he answered, with a leaden stolidity in his own undertone.
"Why did they come?" continued Pauline, lowering her voice still more.
"You invited them, I believe. That is, at least, my impression."
"I mentioned the affair. I never imagined they would wish to come."