“And isn’t it funny, Evie, dear,” Miss Jarrott began, just as he was about to take his leave, “that Mr. Strange’s name should be—­”

“Yes, I’ve been thinking about that,” Miss Colfax fluted, with that pretty way she had of speaking with little movement of the lips.

But he was gone.  He was gone with those broken sentences ringing in his ears—­casual and yet haunting—­meaningless and yet more than pregnant—­creeping through the magic music of the afternoon, as a death-motive breathes in a love-chant.

X

After a night of little sleep and much thinking he determined to listen to nothing but the love-chant.  He came to this decision, not in the recklessness of self-will, but after due consideration of his rights.  It was true that, in biblical phrase, necessity was laid upon him.  He could no more shut his ears against that entrancing song than he could shut his eyes against the daylight.  This was not, however, the argument that he found most cogent, as it was not the impulse from which he meant to act.  If he could make this girl his wife it would be something more than a case of getting his own way; it would be an instance—­probably the highest instance—­of the assertion of himself against a world organized to destroy him.  He could not enter that world and form a part of it; but at least he could carry off a wife from it, as a lion may leap into a sheepfold and snatch a lamb.

It was in this light that he viewed the matter when he accepted Miss Jarrott’s invitations—­now to lunch, now to dinner, now to a seat in their box at the opera or in their carriage in the park—­during the rest of the time he remained in town.  It became clear to him that the family viewed with approval the attachment that had sprung up between Miss Colfax and himself, and were helping it to a happy ending.  He even became aware that they were growing fond of him—­making the discovery with a queer sensation of surprise.  It was a thing so new in his experience that he would have treated the notion as ridiculous had it not been forced upon him.  Women had shown him favors; one lonely old man, now lying in the Recoleta Cemetery, had yearned over him; but a household had never opened its heart to him before.  And yet there could be no other reading of the present situation.  He began to think that Mr. Jarrott was delaying his departure for Rosario purposely, to keep him near.  It was certain that into the old man’s bearing toward him there had crept something that might almost be called paternal, so that their business discussions were much like those between father and son.  Mrs. Jarrott advanced as far out of the circle of her griefs to welcome him as it was possible for her languorous spirit to emerge.  Miss Jarrott, friendly from the first, attached him to the wheels of her social chariot with an air of affectionate possession.

It required no great amount of perspicuity to see that the three elders would be glad if Miss Colfax and he were to “make a match of it,” and why.  It would be a means—­and a means they could approve—­of keeping their little girl among them.  As matters stood, she was only a visitor, who spoke of her flight back to New York as a matter of course.