As to Montague, he was her friend, and she knew that he had not the least intention at present of marrying anybody.  And then the uncharitable gossip went on, that there was the Count de l’Auney, and that Mrs. Mavick was playing the one off against the other.

As the days went on and spring began to appear in the light, fleeting clouds in the blue sky and in the greening foliage in the city squares, Philip became more and more restless.  The situation was intolerable.  Evelyn he could never see.  Perhaps she wondered that he made no effort to see her.  Perhaps she never thought of him at all, and simply, like an obedient child, accepted her mother’s leading, and was getting to like that society life which was recorded in the daily journals.  What did it matter to him whether he stuck to the law or launched himself into the Bohemia of literature, so long as doubt about Evelyn haunted him day and night?  If she was indifferent to him, he would know the worst, and go about his business like a man.  Who were the Mavicks, anyway?

Alice had written him once that Evelyn was a dear girl, no one could help loving her; but she did not like the blood of father and mother.  “And remember, Phil—­you must let me say this—­there is not a drop of mean blood in your ancestors.”

Philip smiled at this.  He was not in love with Mrs. Mavick nor with her husband.  They were for him simply guardians of a treasure he very much coveted, and yet they were to a certain extent ennobled in his mind as the authors of the being he worshiped.  If it should be true that his love for her was returned, it would not be possible even for them to insist upon a course that would make their daughter unhappy for life.  They might reject him—­no doubt he was a wholly unequal match for the heiress—­but could they, to the very end, be cruel to her?

Thus the ingenuous young man argued with himself, until it seemed plain to him that if Evelyn loved him, and the conviction grew that she did, all obstacles must give way to this overmastering passion of his life.  If he were living in a fool’s paradise he would know it, and he ventured to put his fortune to the test of experiment.  The only manly course was to gain the consent of the parents to ask their daughter to marry him; if not that, then to be permitted to see her.  He was nobly resolved to pledge himself to make no proposals to her without their approval.

This seemed a very easy thing to do until he attempted it.  He would simply happen into Mr. Mavick’s office, and, as Mr. Mavick frequently talked familiarly with him, he would contrive to lead the conversation to Evelyn, and make his confession.  He mapped out the whole conversation, and even to the manner in which he would represent his own prospects and ambitions and his hopes of happiness.  Of course Mr. Mavick would evade, and say that it would be a long time before they should think of disposing of their daughter’s hand, and that—­well, he must see himself that he was in no position to support a wife accustomed to luxury; in short, that one could not create situations in real life as he could in novels, that personally he could give him no encouragement, but that he would consult his wife.