At an earlier period of his neglect and exclusion, Jeff would not have responded to the belated overture which had now been made him, for no reason that he could divine.  But he had nothing to lose by accepting the invitation, and he had promised the altruistic man, whom he rather liked; he did not dislike the giver of the tea so much as some other men, and so he came.

The brave girl whom the matron was preparing to devote to him stood shrinking with a trepidation which she could not conceal at sight of his strange massiveness, with his rust-gold hair coming down toward his thick yellow brows and mocking blue eyes in a dense bang, and his jaw squaring itself under the rather insolent smile of his full mouth.  The matron felt that her victim teas perhaps going to fail her, when a voice at her ear said, as if the question were extorted, “Who in the world is that?”

She instantly turned, and flashed out in a few inspired syllables the fact she had just imparted to her treacherous heroine.  “Do let me introduce him, Miss Lynde.  I must do something for him, when he gets up to me, if he ever does.”

“By all means,” said the girl, who had an impulse to laugh at the rude force of Jeff’s face and figure, so disproportioned to the occasion, and she vented it at the matron’s tribulation.  The matron was shaking hands with people right and left, and exchanging inaudible banalities with them.  She did not know what the girl said in answer, but she was aware that she remained near her.  She had professed her joy at seeing Jeff again, when he reached her, and she turned with him and said, “Let me present you to Miss Lynde, Mr. Durgin,” and so abandoned them to each other.

As Jeff had none of the anxiety for social success which he would have felt at an earlier period, he now left it to Miss Lynde to begin the talk, or not, as she chose.  He bore himself with so much indifference that she was piqued to an effort to hold his eyes, that wandered from her to this face and that in the crowd.

“Do you find many people you know, Mr. Durgin?”

“I don’t find any.”

“I supposed you didn’t from the way you looked at them.”

“How did I look at them?”

“As if you wanted to eat them, and one never wants to eat one’s friends.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  They wouldn’t agree with one.”

Jeff laughed, and he now took fuller note of the slender girl who stood before him, and swayed a little backward, in a graceful curve.  He saw that she had a dull, thick complexion, with liquid eyes, set wide apart and slanted upward slightly, and a nose that was deflected inward from the straight line; but her mouth was beautiful and vividly red like a crimson blossom.

“Couldn’t you find me some place to sit down, Mr. Durgin?” she asked.

He had it on his tongue to say, “Well, not unless you want to sit down on some enemy,” but he did not venture this:  when it comes to daring of that sort, the boldest man is commonly a little behind a timid woman.