Mrs. Bartlett Glow found many acquaintances here from New York and Philadelphia and Newport, and, to do her justice, she introduced Irene to them and presently involved her in so many pleasure parties and excursions that she and King were scarcely ever alone together.  When opportunity offered for a stroll a deux, the girl’s manner was so constrained that King was compelled to ask the reason of it.  He got very little satisfaction, and the puzzle of her conduct was increased by her confession that she loved him just the same, and always should.

“But something has come between us,” he said.  “I think I have the right to be treated with perfect frankness.”

“So you have,” she replied.  “There is nothing—­nothing at least that changes my feeling towards you.”

“But you think that mine is changed for you?”

“No, not that, either, never that;” and her voice showed excitement as she turned away her head.  “But don’t you know, Stanhope, you have not known me very long, and perhaps you have been a little hasty, and—­how shall I say it?—­if you had more time to reflect, when you go back to your associates and your active life, it might somehow look differently to you, and your prospects—­”

“Why, Irene, I have no prospects without you.  I love you; you are my life.  I don’t understand.  I am just yours, and nothing you can do will ever make it any different for me; but if you want to be free—­”

“No, no,” cried the girl, trying in vain to restrain her agitation and her tears, “not that.  I don’t want to be free.  But you will not understand.  Circumstances are so cruel, and if, Stanhope, you ever should regret when it is too late!  It would kill me.  I want you to be happy.  And, Stanhope, promise me that, whatever happens, you will not think ill of me.”

Of course he promised, he declared that nothing could happen, he vowed, and he protested against this ridiculous phantom in her mind.  To a man, used to straightforward cuts in love as in any other object of his desire, this feminine exaggeration of conscientiousness is wholly incomprehensible.  How under heavens a woman could get a kink of duty in her mind which involved the sacrifice of herself and her lover was past his fathoming.

The morning after this conversation, the most of which the reader has been spared, there was an excursion to Cooperstown.  The early start of the tally-ho coaches for this trip is one of the chief sensations of the quiet village.  The bustle to collect the laggards, the importance of the conductors and drivers, the scramble up the ladders, the ruses to get congenial seat-neighbors, the fine spirits of everybody evoked by the fresh morning air, and the elevation on top of the coaches, give the start an air of jolly adventure.  Away they go, the big red-and-yellow arks, swinging over the hills and along the well-watered valleys, past the twin lakes to Otsego, over which hangs the romance of Cooper’s tales, where a steamer waits.