“Yes; but not many French novels; I cannot.”

“Nor can I,” said Carmen, with a sincere face.  “They are too realistic for me.”  She was at the moment running over in her mind a “situation” in a paper-covered novel turned down on her nightstand.  “Mr. Henderson says that everybody condemns the French novels, and that people praise the novels they don’t read.”

“You know Mr. Henderson very well?”

“Yes; we’ve known him a long time.  He is the only man I’m afraid of.”

“Afraid of?”

“Well, you know he is a sort of Club man; that style of man provokes your curiosity, for you never can tell how much such men know.  It makes you a little uneasy.”

Carmen was looking into the fire, as if abstractedly reflecting upon the nature of men in general, but she did not fail to notice a slight expression of pain on Margaret’s face.

“But there is your Mr. Lyon—­”

Margaret laughed.  “You do me too much honor.  I think you discovered him first.”

“Well, our Mr. Lyon.”  Carmen was still looking into the fire.  “He is such a good young man!”

Margaret did not exactly fancy this sort of commendation, and she replied, with somewhat the tone of defending him, “We all have the highest regard for Mr. Lyon.”

“Yes, and he is quite gone on Brandon, I assure you.  He intends to do a great deal of good in the world.  I think he spends half his time in New York studying, he calls it, our charitable institutions.  Mamma reproaches me that I don’t take more interest in philanthropy.  That is her worldly side.  Everybody has a worldly side.  I’m as worldly as I can be”—­this with a look of innocence that denied the self-accusation—­“but I haven’t any call to marry into Exeter Hall and that sort of thing.  That is what she means—­dear mamma.  Are you High-Church or evangelical?” she asked, after a moment, turning to Margaret?

Margaret explained that she was neither.

“Well, I am High-Church, and Mr. Lyon is evangelical-Church evangelical.  There couldn’t be any happiness, you know, without harmony in religious belief.”

“I should think not,” said Margaret, now quite recovering herself.  “It must be a matter of great anxiety to you here.”

Carmen was quick to note the change of tone, and her face beamed with merriment as she rose.

“What nonsense I’ve been talking!  I did not intend to go into such deep things.  You must not mind what I said about Mr.—­(a little pause to read Margaret’s face)—­Mr. Lyon.  We esteem him as much as you do.  How charming you are looking this morning!  I wish I had your secret of not letting this life tell on one.”  And she was gone in a shower of compliments and smiles and caressing ways.  She had found out what she came to find out.  Mr. Henderson needs watching, she said to herself.

The interview, as Margaret thought it over, was amusing, but it did not raise her spirits.  Was everybody worldly and shallow?  Was this the sort of woman whom Mr. Henderson fancied?  Was Mr. Henderson the sort of man to whom such a woman would be attracted?