“Well, in this case mine have been actually solicited.  And I feel I ought to do something, because, in a way, I’m more or less responsible for the—­the imbroglio.”

Slipping her hand through his arm, she led him back into the library.

“You see, it’s this way.  Perhaps, after all, it will be better, simpler, if I don’t try to beat about the bush.  Amy Pelham has been terribly devoted to Mr. Van Brandt for ever so long—­oh, quite six months.  And he has been rather attentive, though I can’t say he struck me as very much in love.  You know she asked me out to Tuxedo not long ago.  She wanted me to watch him and tell her if I thought he was serious. Well, I watched him, but I couldn’t say I thought he was serious. However, you never can tell.  Men are so extraordinary!  They sometimes masquerade so, their own mothers wouldn’t know them.”

“Or their sisters.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing worth repeating.  Go on with your story.”

“Well, then, one evening she brought him here, you remember.  I’d asked him to come, when I was in Tuxedo, and he evidently wanted to do so, for he proposed to Amy that she bring him.  Of course, I’d no idea he and Miss Lang had ever met before, and when I innocently ordered her in, I did it simply because Radcliffe was refractory and refused to come without her, and I couldn’t have a scene before guests.”

“Well?”

“I didn’t know Mr. Van Brandt came from Grand Rapids.  How should I?  One never thinks of those little, provincial towns as having any society.”

“You dear insular, insolent New Yorker.”

“Well, you may jeer as much as you like, but that’s the way one feels.  I didn’t know that, as Martha says, he was ‘formerly born’ in Michigan.  I just took him for granted, as one does people one meets in our best houses.  He’s evidently of good stock, he has money (not a fortune, perhaps, but enough), he’s handsome, and he’s seen everywhere with the smartest people in town.”

“Well?”

“Well, naturally Amy doesn’t want to lose him, especially as she’s really awfully fond of him and he is uncommonly attractive, you know.”

“Well?”

“It looks as if that one glimpse of Miss Lang had been enough to upset everything for Amy.  He’s hardly been there since.”

“And what does she propose to do about it?”

“She doesn’t know what to do about it.  That’s where my suggestions and advice are to come in.”

“I see.”

“Of course, we can’t be certain, but from what Bob Van Brandt has dropped and from what Amy has been able to gather from other sources, from people who knew Miss Lang and him in their native burg, he was attached to her when she was no more than a kiddie.  Then, when they grew up, he came East and she went abroad, and they lost sight of each other.  But, as I say, that one glimpse of her was enough to ignite the old flame.  You must have seen yourself how frankly, openly he showed his feeling that night.”