Burns turned and looked at him, then at his wife, then back at Leaver.  There was a strange expression in his hazel eyes; they seemed suddenly on fire beneath the heavy dark eyebrows.  He took off his hat and ran his hand through his coppery thick locks.  Then: 

“Are you serious, Jack?” he questioned.  “Or are you trying the biggest kind of a bluff?”

“Absolutely serious.  How should I be anything else?  You taught me certain values up at your home last summer—­you and Mrs. Burns.  One was, as I have said, the worth of a big, true friendship.  I’ve been thinking of this thing a long time.  It’s not the result of your performance this morning.  If you had failed entirely in that particular attempt my faith in you would not have been shaken a particle, nor my desire to have you associated with me here.  But there’s no denying that what you did this morning would easily make an entering wedge for you.  Why not take advantage of it?  Will you think it over?”

Burns looked again at his wife.  Her eyes held an expression as beautiful as it was inscrutable.  He could not read it.

He turned back to Leaver.  “Yes, we’ll think it over,” he said briefly.  Then he looked out of the window again.  “What’s the name of this park?” he asked.

The conversation veered to follow his lead.  It was not resumed during the drive home, nor again that day, between the four.  It cannot be denied that the subject was discussed by John Leaver and Charlotte through varying degrees of hopefulness and enthusiasm.  As for Burns and Ellen—­

In their own quarters that night Burns threw a plump silk couch-pillow upon the floor at Ellen’s feet, and himself upon it, by her knee, as she sat in a big chair by the open window.  She was still wearing the Parisian-made gown of the evening, with which she had delighted the eyes of them all.  It was the one such gown she had allowed herself to bring home, treating herself to its beauty for its own sake, rather than because she could find much use for it in her quiet home.

Burns put up one hand and gently smoothed the silken fabric upon Ellen’s knee.

“This is a beauty of a frock,” said he.  “I can’t tell you what you look like in it; I’ve been trying to find a simile all the evening.  Yet it’s not the clothes that become you; you become the clothes.”

“Thank you.  That’s a dear compliment—­from a husband.”

“It’s sincere.  You’ve worn such clothes a lot, in your life, before I knew you.  You are used to them—­at home in them.  If we came to Baltimore, and I made good, you would have plenty of use for dresses like this.  You would queen it, here.”

She smiled, shaking her head.  “Taking one’s place in society in any Southern city isn’t quite such a foregone conclusion, dear,” she said.  “Not for strangers from the North.”

“With the Leavers to vouch for us, and your own personality, I don’t imagine it would be a matter of tremendous difficulty.  Even the country surgeon could get along without smashing many usages, under your tuition.  Besides, you have the acquaintance of some of the—­what do they call them?—­’best people,’ was the term, I believe, Jack used to me.  It’s a curious phrase, by the way, isn’t it?  Doesn’t mean at all what it says!”