"Ma chère, I am dying to know how you like the count!" she cried.
"He is very nice, I suppose," said Laurel, vaguely, her thoughts elsewhere.
"'Very nice'—oh, dear, what faint praise for my gallant adorer!" laughed the lady. "Why, my dear Beatrix, all the girls in New York vote him a love, a darling, an Adonis, and above all, a splendid catch! They are all jealous of me! Any one of them could willingly cut my ears off for having taken him captive!"
"Then you are to marry him?" said innocent Laurel, taking a vague pleasure in the thought as suggested by the lady's words.
"Cela depend. I can marry him if I choose," laughed the lady. "You must have observed how devoted he is."
Laurel had not observed it; but she wisely said nothing.
Maud Merivale shook her golden frizzes in the moonlight.
"I shall not marry him. It is useless his breaking his heart over me," she said. "I am too true to my old love."
"Your dead husband," Laurel said, gently.
"Pshaw, Beatrix"—impatiently—"what are you talking of? Do you not know that Mr. Merivale was an old man? It was not at all a love match: it was because he was rich."