"I'll do what I can, ma'am." And Matilda went out.
"What time does the Plutonia sail?" inquired Olivetta, with the haste of one who is trying to get off of very thin ice.
"At one to-night. Matilda will get me a bit of dinner and I shall go aboard right after it."
"How many times does this make that you've been over?"
"I do not know," Mrs. De Peyster answered carelessly. "Thirty or forty, I dare say."
Olivetta's face was wistful with unenvious envy. "Oh, what a pleasure!"
"Going to Europe, Olivetta, is hardly a pleasure," corrected Mrs. De Peyster. "It is a duty one owes one's social position."
"Yes, I know that's true with you, Cousin Caroline. But with me—what a joy! When you took me over with you that summer, we only did the watering-places. But now"—a note of ecstatic desire came into her voice, and she clasped her hands—"but now, to see Paris!—the Louvre!—the Luxembourg! It's the dream of my life!"
Mrs. De Peyster again gave her cousin a suspicious look.
"Olivetta, have you been allowing M. Dubois to pay you any more attention?"