“I don’t know.  You think she shouldn’t?”

“I think she shouldn’t.  I tell you frankly he doesn’t deserve it.”

“Oh, as for that!” said Mrs. Vandervelde, airily.

Hayden paused in his restless walk, and looked at her earnestly.

“Berkeley,” said she, changing her light tone, “am I to understand that you are—­really in earnest?”

“I am so much in earnest,” he replied, deliberately, “that I do not mind telling you, Marcia, that I want this girl.  More, I mean to have her, if I can make her care for me.”

She considered this carefully.  He had never known what it meant to have his wishes thwarted, and now he would move heaven and earth to win Anne Champneys.  Well, but!—­She liked Hayden, and she didn’t think, all things considered, that Anne Champneys could do better, if she wished to have her marriage to Peter annulled, than to marry Berkeley.  But how would Jason consider such a move?  Jason had been greatly attached to old Mr. Champneys.  Indeed, his connection with that astute old wizard had just about doubled their income.  Jason wouldn’t be likely to look with friendly eyes upon this bringing to naught, what he knew had been Champneys’s fondest scheme.  She said, after a pause: 

“Does Anne know?”

“Who knows what Anne knows?  But on the face of it, I should say she doesn’t.  At least, she doesn’t appear to.  I have been very—­circumspect,” said he, moodily.  And he added angrily:  “She seems to regard me as a sort of cicerone, a perambulating, vocal Baedeker!”

Mrs. Vandervelde smiled openly.  “It is your surest hold upon her.  I shouldn’t cavil at it, if I were you.  To Anne you are the sum total of human knowledge.  Your dictum is the last word to be said about anything.”

But Berkeley still looked sulky.  The idea of being what Sydney Smith said Macaulay was—­a book in breeches—­didn’t appeal to him at all.

“What would you advise me to do?” he asked, after a pause.

She said reflectively:  “Let her alone for a while, Berkeley.  If her liking for you grows naturally into affection,—­and it may, you know,—­that would be best.  If you try to force it, you may drive her from you altogether.  I tell you frankly, she is not in the least interested in any man as a lover, so far as I can judge.”

He was forced to admit the truth of this.  She wasn’t.  She seemed to dislike any faintest sign of loverliness from any man toward her.  Hayden had observed her icy attitude toward the painter who had fancied he found in her his ideal Undine, and who showed too openly his desire to help her gain a soul for herself.  The idea that she might look at him as she had looked at the painter was highly unpleasant to him.  He asked again: 

“But what am I to do?”

“Nothing,” said Mrs. Vandervelde, succinctly.

“But suppose she falls in love with somebody else.”

“She is more likely to fall in love with you, I should imagine, if you keep quiet for a while and allow her to do so.  Just remain her guide, philosopher, and friend, can’t you?”