“Have you—­Couldn’t you let her see—­drop a hint—­of the unconscious injury she is—­”

“That is the cruelty of my position,” moaned Mrs. Durant.  “I should not hesitate a moment, but the world is so ill-natured about stepmothers that one has to be over-careful, and with daughters of my own, I’m afraid people—­perhaps my own husband—­would think I was trying to sacrifice her to them.”

“But have you no friend you could ask to—?”

“Josie!  Would you?” eagerly interrupted Mrs. Durant.  “She will be influenced, I know, by anything you—­”

“Gracious, my dear, I never dreamed of—­of you asking me!  Why, I don’t know her in the least.  I couldn’t, really.”

“But for my sake?  And you know her as well as—­as any one else; for Constance has no intimates or—­”

“Don’t you see that’s it?  I’d as soon think of—­of—­From me she would only take it as an impertinence.”

“I don’t see why everybody stands so in awe of a girl of twenty-three, unless it’s because she’s rich,” querulously sighed Mrs. Durant.

“I don’t think it’s that, Anne.  It’s her proud face and reserved manner.  And I believe those are the real reasons for her not marrying.  However much men may admire her, they—­they—­Well, it’s your kittenish, cuddling kind of a girl they marry.”

“No; you are entirely wrong.  Doubtless it is her money, but Constance has had plenty of admirers, and if she were less self—­if she considered the interests of the family—­she would have married years ago.  But she is wholly blind to her duty, and checks or rebuffs every man who attempts to show her devotion.  And just because others take their places, she is puffed up into the belief that she is to go through life with an everlasting train of would-be suitors, and so enjoys her own triumph, with never a thought of my girls.”

“Why not ask her father to speak to her?”

“My dear!  As if I hadn’t, a dozen times at the least,”

“And what does he say?”

“That Constance shows her sense by not caring for the men I invite to the house!  As if I could help it!  Of course with three girls in the house one must cultivate dancing-men, and it’s very unfair to blame me if they aren’t all one could wish.”

“I thought Constance gave up going to dances last winter?”

“She did, but still I must ask them to my dinners, for if I don’t they won’t show Muriel and Doris attention.  Mr. Durant should realise that I only do it for their sakes; yet to listen to him you’d suppose it was my duty to close my doors to dancing-men, and spend my time seeking out the kind one never hears of—­who certainly don’t know how to dance, and who would either not talk at my dinners, or would lecture upon one subject to the whole table—­just because they are what he calls ‘purposeful men.’”

“He probably recognises that the society man is not a marrying species, while the other is.”