“Then she beats me,” said Mavick, with another laugh, “and I’ve been at it a long time.  Carmen, just for fun, tell me a little about your early life.”

“Well”—­there was a Madonna-like smile on her lips, and she put out the toe of her slender foot and appeared to study it for a moment—­” I was intended to be a nun.”

“Spanish or French?”

“Just a plain nun.  But mamma would not hear of it.  Mamma was just a bit worldly.”

“I never should have suspected it,” said Mavick, with equal gravity.  “But how did you live in those early days, way back there?”

“Oh!” and Carmen looked up with the most innocent, open-eyed expression, “we lived on our income.”

“Naturally.  We all try to do that.”  The tone in Mavick’s voice showed that he gave it up.

“But, of course,” and Carmen was lively again, “it’s much nicer to have a big income that’s certain than a small one that is uncertain.”

“It would seem so.”

“Ah, deary me, it’s such a world!  Don’t you think, dear, that we have had enough domestic notoriety for one year?”

“Quite.  It would do for several.”

“And we will put it off a year?”

“Arrange as you like.”  And Mavick stretched up his arms, half yawned, and took up another cigar.

“It will be such a relief to McDonald.  She insisted it was too soon.”  And Carmen whirled out of her chair, went behind her husband, lifted with her delicate fingers a lock of grayish hair on his forehead, deposited the lightest kiss there—­“Nobody in the world knows how good you are except me,” and was gone.

And the rich man, who had gained everything he wanted in life except happiness, lighted his cigar and sought refuge in a tale of modern life, that was, however, too much like his own history to be consoling.

It must not be supposed from what she said that Mrs. Mavick stood in fear of her daughter, but it was only natural that for a woman of the world the daily contact of a pure mind should be at times inconvenient.  This pure mind was an awful touchstone of conduct, and there was a fear that Evelyn’s ignorance of life would prevent her from making the proper allowances.  In her affectionate and trusting nature, which suspected little evil anywhere, there was no doubt that her father and mother had her entire confidence and love.  But the likelihood was that she would not be pliant.  Under Miss McDonald’s influence she had somewhat abstract notions of what is right and wrong, and she saw no reason why these should not be applied in all cases.  What her mother would have called policy and reasonable concessions she would have given different names.  For getting on in the world, this state of mind has its disadvantages, and in the opinion of practical men, like Mavick, it was necessary to know good and evil.  But it was the girl’s power of discernment that bothered her mother, who used often to wonder where the child came from.