"Come now, Coz, be reasonable. From all the indications I have seen, Van Berg is the last man to follow you here or anywhere else, even though he knew of your prospective movements. He is here, as scores of others are, for his own pleasure. So follow your mother to your room, smooth your ruffled plumage and come down to supper."
Even Miss Mayhew's egotism could find no fault with so reasonable an explanation, and she went pouting up the stairway in anything but a complacent mood.
Stanton stepped out upon the piazza to greet his friend, saying:
"Why, Van, it is an unexpected pleasure to find you here."
"I was equally and quite as agreeably surprised to see you drive to the door. If you cousin had not come I might have helped you exercise your bays. I am doing some sketching in the vicinity."
"My cousin shall not keep you from many an idle hour behind the bays—that is, if you will not carry your antipathy so far as to cut me on account of my relationship."
"I'm not conscious of any antipathy for Miss Mayhew," replied Van
Berg, with a slight shrug.
"Oh, only indifference! Well, if you will both maintain that attitude there will be no trouble about the bays or anything else. I'll smoke with you after supper."
"She evidently has an antipathy for me," mused Van Berg. "Stanton, no doubt, has told her of my uncomplimentary remarks, and possibly of the fact that I declined an introduction. That's awkward, for if I should now ask to be presented to her, she would very naturally decline, and so we might drift into something as closely resembling a quarrel as is possible in the case of two people who have never spoken to each other."
He concluded that it would be best to leave to chance the occasion which should place them on speaking terms, and tried to persuade himself that her unpromising attitude towards him was not wholly unfavorable to his purpose. He never could hope to accomplish anything without at first piquing her pride and wounding her vanity. His only fear was that this had been done too effectually, and that from first to last she would simply detest him.