“You’re so good about that, dear Aunt Vic.  I didn’t understand I was to have it when I couldn’t see my way to—­to—­”

“To marry Berteuil.  That’s all over and done with.  I see you weren’t made for life in the real world.  Anyhow,” she added, taking a virtuous air, “when my word was passed it was passed.  Not that your dot will do you much good.  It’ll all have to go to settle the claims of this Mr.—­By the way, where is he?  Why doesn’t he come and be paid?”

“He’s out in Michigan, at a little place called Stoughton.”

“Then send for him.”

“I’m not sure we can get him.  Cousin Cherry has written to him three times since he went away, and he doesn’t answer.”

“Cousin Cherry!  What a goose!  Who’d ever think she was the pretty Charlotte Hawke that Rodney Temple fell in love with.  What’s the matter with you, over here, that you all grow old at a minute’s notice, so to speak?  I never saw such a lot of frumps as the women who used to be my own contemporaries.  Rodney and I were very good friends once.  If I could only have settled down in humdrum old Waverton—­but we’ll let bygones be bygones, and send for your man.”

“I’ll ask Cousin Cherry to write to him again.”

“Stuff, dear.  That won’t do any good.  Wire him yourself, and tell him I’m here.”

“Oh, but, Aunt Vic, dear.”

With little perkings of the head and much rolling of the eyes the Marquise watched the warm color rise in Olivia’s cheek and surge slowly upward to the temples.  Madame de Melcourt made signs of trying to look anywhere and everywhere, up to the ceiling and down at the floor, rather than be a witness of so much embarrassment.  She emphasized her discretion, too, by making a great show of seeing nothing in particular, toying with her rings and bracelets till Olivia had sufficiently recovered to be again commanded to send for Davenant.

“Tell him I’m here and that I want to have a look at him.  Use my name so that he’ll see it’s urgent.  Then you can sign the telegram with your own.  Cousin Cherry!  Stuff!”

* * * * *

Later that day Madame de Melcourt was making a confession to Rodney Temple.

“Oui, mon bon Rodney.  It was love at first sight.  The thing hadn’t happened to me for years.”

“Had it been in the habit of happening?”

“In the habit of happening—­that’s too much to say.  I may have had a little toquade from time to time—­I don’t say no—­of an innocence!—­or nearly of an innocence!—­Mais que voulez-vous?—­a woman in my position!—­a widow since I was so high!—­and exposed to the most flattering attentions.  You know nothing about it over here.  L’amour est l’enfant de Boheme, as the song says, and, whatever you can say for Waverton and Cambridge and Boston, you’ll admit—­”

He leaned back in his rocking-chair with a laugh.  “One does the best one can, Vic.  We’re children of opportunity as well as enfants de Boheme.  If your chances have been more generous, and I presume more tempting, than ours, it isn’t kind of you to come back and taunt us.”