“I can’t imagine what is the matter with Cousin Anneke.  All last spring she was nicer to me than she has ever been before, but from the moment I arrived at Newport, and before I could possibly have said or done anything to offend her, she treated me in the snippiest way.  After two days I asked her what the matter was, but she insisted there was nothing, and really lost her temper at my suggesting the idea.  There was something, I know, for when I said I was coming home sooner than I had at first intended, she didn’t try to make me stay.”

“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Ogden, “she was disappointed in something, and so vented her feeling on you.”

“But she wasn’t cross—­except when I asked her what the matter was.  She was just—­just snippy.”

“Was Mr. Stirling there?”

“Yes.  And a lot of other people.  I don’t think anybody had a good time, unless it was Cousin Lispenard.  And he wasn’t a bit nice.  He had some joke to himself, and kept making remarks that nobody could understand, and chuckling over them.  I told him once that he was rude, but he said that ‘when people went to a play they should laugh at the right points.’  That’s the nice thing about Mr. Stirling.  You know that what he says is the real truth.”

“Lispenard’s always trying to be clever.”

“Yes.  What do you suppose he said to me as I came away!”

“What?”

“He shook my hand, laughing, and said, ’Exit villain.  It is to be a comedy, not a tragedy.’  What could he mean?”

Lispenard stayed on to see the “comedy,” and seemed to enjoy it, if the amused expression on his face when he occasionally gave himself up to meditation was any criterion.  Peter had been pressed to stay beyond the original week, and had so far yielded as to add three days to his visit.  These last three days were much pleasanter than those which had gone before, although Dorothy had departed and Peter liked Dorothy.  But he saw much more of Miss De Voe, and Miss De Voe was in a much pleasanter mood.  They took long drives and walks together, and had long hours of talk in and about the pleasant house and grounds.  Miss De Voe had cut down her social duties for the ten days Peter was there, giving far more time for them to kill than usually fell to Newporters even in those comparitively simple days.

In one of these talks, Miss De Voe spoke of Dorothy.

“She is such a nice, sweet girl,” she said.  “We all hope she’ll marry Lispenard.”

“Do you think cousins ought to marry?”

Miss De Voe had looked at Peter when she made her remark.  Peter had replied quietly, but his question, as Miss De Voe understood it, was purely scientific, not personal.  Miss De Voe replied: 

“I suppose it is not right, but it is so much better than what may happen, that it really seems best.  It is so hard for a girl in Dorothy’s position to marry as we should altogether wish.”

“Why?” asked Peter, who did not see that a girl with prospective wealth, fine social position, and personal charm, was not necessarily well situated to get the right kind of a husband.