Haviland and Arthur had met many times since the Farnum ball; and Arthur was more pleased than surprised at finding him in his rooms to-night. “I’m so glad you waited—I’ve just come from the Livingstones,” said he. “Charlie, let me introduce my friend Mr. Haviland—Mr. Townley. Have a cigar—oh, you’ve got a pipe, have you?”
The others already had cigars; and disposing themselves in attitudes of permanent equilibrium, all plunged into the divine cloud of vapor until such times as the genius of the place should move them to speech.
“Is the Miss Holyoke who is staying at the Livingstones’ your cousin?” asked Haviland, finally.
“Yes,” said Arthur. “Don’t you know her?”
“What a queer old thing that Miss Brevier is,” said Charlie. “Can you believe it, she used to be a bosom-friend of Mrs. Levison G.!”
“Pity Miss Brevier dropped her,” said Haviland, dryly.
“Miss Brevier drop her?” said Charlie, whose sense of humor was sometimes, at a critical moment, deficient. “You are chaffing.”
“Mrs. Gower,” said Haviland, gravely, “does more harm than any woman in New York.”
“She is a person of European reputation,” suggested Townley.
“She is unquestionably proficient in the latest and silliest vices of the aristocracies we came over here to escape from,” retorted John.