"Really?" said Vance, turning over his hat in what he felt to be a most perfunctory way.
"Yes; if you or Anita Clifton had been here in the last two months, you might have found out that I have had a young lady—a Southern cousin—stopping in the house."
"A cousin of mine?" queried the young man, indifferently.
"My first cousin's daughter, Evelyn Carlyle. You know there was a break between the families about the beginning of the war, and, for one reason or another, we have hardly met since. When I went to the Hot Springs for my rheumatism last year,—you and Anita Clifton doubtless are not aware that I have been a great sufferer from rheumatism,—I stopped a night or two at Colonel Carlyle's house in Virginia, and took rather a fancy to this girl. I found out that she has a voice, and desired to cultivate it in New York, and so invited her to come on after Christmas and stay in my house."
Vance was conscious of a slight feeling of somnolence. Really, he could not be expected to care for the Virginian cousin's voice. And Aunt Myrtle had such a soporific way of drawling out her sentences! He wished she would return to the subject of her luncheon-guest, and then, perhaps, he might manage to keep awake.
"So you invited Miss Ainger to-day, to keep the young lady company?" he ventured to observe.
"If you will give me time to explain, I will tell you that Katherine Ainger and she have struck up the greatest friendship this winter, and have been together part of every day. I wish, Vance, that you could bring yourself to extend some attention to your mother's first cousin's child. From Anita Clifton I expect nothing—absolutely nothing. Not belonging to the 'smart set,' whatever that may be, I make no demands upon Anita Clifton. But you, Vance, have not yet shown that you are absolutely heartless. When Eve goes home, as she soon will, it would be gratifying to have her able to say you had recognized her existence."
"I will leave a card for the young lady in the hall," he said, awkwardly; "and perhaps she would allow me to order some flowers for her. Just now, Aunt Myrtle, I have an engagement, and I must really be going on."
He had risen to his feet, and Mrs. Myrtle was about shaping a last arrow to aim at him, when the door opened, and a girl came into the room.
"Oh! Cousin Augusta," she said, in the most outspoken manner, a slight Southern accent marking some of the syllables enunciated in a remarkably sweet voice, "I have been taking your Dandie Dinmont for a walk, and he has been such a good, obedient dear, you must give him two lumps of sugar when he comes to tea at five o'clock."