"Does that conclude the list of the Cardross family?" he asked.
"N-no. There remains the beauty of the family, Shiela." She continued to survey him with smiling intentness, and went on slowly:
"Shiela Cardross; the girl here. People are quite mad about her, I assure you. My dear, every man at Palm Beach tags after her; rows of callow youths sit and gaze at her very footprints in the sand when she crosses the beach; she turns masculine heads to the verge of permanent dislocation. No guilty man escapes; even Courtlandt Classon is meditating treachery to me, and Mr. Cuyp has long been wavering and Gussie Vetchen too! the wretch!... We poor women try hard to like her—but, Garry, is it human to love such a girl?"
"It's divine, Constance, so you'll like her."
"Oh, yes; thank you. Well, I do; I don't know her well, but I'm inclined to like her—in a way.... There's something else, though." She considered her handsome nephew steadily. "You are to be a guest there while this work of yours is in hand?"
"Yes—I believe so."
"Then, dear, without the slightest unworthy impulse or the faintest trace of malice, I wish to put you on your guard. It's horrid, but I must."
"On my guard!" he repeated.
