that he was an exceedingly well-bred man, and she did not believe half the stories about him.  Henderson himself at once appreciated the talents of Mavick, gauged him perfectly, and saw what services he might be capable of rendering at Washington.  Mr. Mavick appreciated the advantage of a connection with such a capitalist, and of having open to him another luxurious house in New York.  At the dinner-table Carmen and Mr. Mavick had not exchanged a dozen remarks before these clever people felt that they were congenial spirits.  It was in the smoking-room that Henderson and Mavick fell into an interesting conversation, which resulted in an invitation for Mavick to drop in at Henderson’s office in the morning.  The dinner had not been a brilliant one.  Henderson found it not easy to select topics equally interesting to Mrs. Delancy and Mrs. Blunt, and finally fell into geographical information to the latter about Mexico and Honduras.  For Edith, the sole relief of the evening was an exchange of sympathy with Father Damon, and she was too much preoccupied to enjoy that.  As for Carmen, placed between Jack and Mr. Mavick, and conscious that the eyes of Mrs. Blunt were on her, she was taking a subdued role, which Jack found much less attractive than her common mood.  But this was not her only self-sacrifice of the evening.  She went without her usual cigarette.

To Edith the dinner was a revelation of new difficulties in the life she proposed for herself, though they were rather felt than distinctly reasoned about.  The social atmosphere was distasteful; its elements were out of harmony with her ideals.  Not that this society was new to her, but that she saw it in a new light.  Before her marriage all these things had been indifferent to this high-spirited girl.  They were merely incidents of the social state into which she was born, and she pursued her way among them, having a tolerably clear conception of what her own life should be, with little recognition of their tendencies.  Were only her own life concerned, they would still be indifferent to her.  But something had happened.  That which is counted the best thing in life had come to her, that best thing which is the touchstone of character as it is of all conditions, and which so often introduces inextricable complications.  She had fallen in love with Jack Delancy and married him.

The first effect of this was to awake and enlarge what philosophers would call her enthusiasm of humanity.  The second effect was to show her—­and this was what this little dinner emphasized—­that she had put limitations upon herself and taken on unthought-of responsibilities.  To put this sort of life one side, or make it secondary to her own idea of a useful and happy life, would have been easy but for one thing—­she loved Jack.  This philosophic reasoning about it does her injustice.  It did not occur to her that she could go her way and let him go his way.  Nor must it be supposed that the problem seemed as grave to her as it really was—­the danger of frittering away her own higher nature in faithfulness to one of the noblest impulses of that nature.  Yet this is the way that so many trials of life come, and it is the greatest test of character.  She felt —­as many women do feel—­that if she retained her husband’s love all would be well, and the danger involved to herself probably did not cross her mind.