“Perhaps it may not be quite the same,” admitted Mrs. De Peyster.  “But I see no reason for departing from my custom.”

“If not for your own sake, then—­then for the artist’s sake!” Olivetta pursued, a little more eagerly, and a little more of diffidence in her eagerness.  “You have taken up M. Dubois—­you have been his most distinguished patron—­you have been trying to get him properly started.  To have his picture displayed like that, think how it will help M. Dubois!”

Mrs. De Peyster gave Olivetta a sharp look, as though she questioned the entire disinterestedness of this argument; then she considered an instant; and in the main it was her human instinct to help a struggling fellow being that dictated her decision.

“Matilda, you may give the man a photograph of the picture.  And as I treat the papers without discrimination, you may give photographs to all the reporters who wish them.  But on the understanding that M. Dubois is to have conspicuous credit.”

“Very well, ma’am.”

“And send all of them away.”

“I’ll do what I can, ma’am.”  And Matilda went out.

“What time does the Plutonia sail?” inquired Olivetta, with the haste of one who is trying to get off of very thin ice.

“At one to-night.  Matilda will get me a bit of dinner and I shall go aboard right after it.”

“How many times does this make that you’ve been over?”

“I do not know,” Mrs. De Peyster answered carelessly.  “Thirty or forty, I dare say.”

Olivetta’s face was wistful with unenvious envy.  “Oh, what a pleasure!”

“Going to Europe, Olivetta, is hardly a pleasure,” corrected Mrs. De Peyster.  “It is a duty one owes one’s social position.”

“Yes, I know that’s true with you, Cousin Caroline.  But with me—­what a joy!  When you took me over with you that summer, we only did the watering-places.  But now”—­a note of ecstatic desire came into her voice, and she clasped her hands—­“but now, to see Paris!—­the Louvre!—­the Luxembourg!  It’s the dream of my life!”

Mrs. De Peyster again gave her cousin a suspicious look.

“Olivetta, have you been allowing M. Dubois to pay you any more attention?”

“No, no,—­of course not,” cried Olivetta, and a sudden color tinted the too-early autumn of her cheeks.  “Do you think, after what you said—­”

“M.  Dubois is a very good artist, but—­”

“I understand, Cousin Caroline,” Olivetta put in hastily.  “I think too much of your position to think of such a thing.  Since you—­since then—­I have not spoken to him, and have only bowed to him once.”

“We will say no more about it,” returned Mrs. De Peyster; and she kissed Olivetta with her duchess-like kindness.  “By the by, my dear, your comb is on the floor.”

“So it is.  It’s always falling out.”

Olivetta picked it up, put it into place, and with nervous hands tried to press into order loose-flying locks of her rather scanty hair.