“Have no fear for me.”
Mrs. Wellford, who was a very charming young woman, continued gravely:
“She is wonderfully fascinating, and I do not mind confessing that I love her dearly. To me she appears a thoughtless child, almost innocent of intentional wrong-doing, but the fact remains that she has given pain to many true, loving hearts by encouraging their suits only to reject them at the last, after leading them on with all the tactics of the most finished coquette. I have even heard it said that she intends to have a hundred rejections to boast of before she marries.”
“She will never add my name to the list,” he replied, bitterly.
“Do not be too sure. She can be irresistible when she chooses, the little siren!” she exclaimed; and just then some one joined them, and no more was said on the subject.
But Philip Desha understood that his cousin’s pride was enlisted lest Miss Van Lew should have the triumph of adding him to the list of her victims.
“It shall never be,” he said to himself, passionately, and held his course resolutely, keeping away from every place where he was likely to meet the little beauty.
“By and by I shall have conquered myself, then I can meet her again with indifference,” he promised himself.
But that by and by was slow in coming, he could not deny that to himself.
He thought one reason was that he heard so much about her, for the young men found her beauty a favorite topic.