“How is a lady to know that you have a preference for her, if you do not manifest it in some way?” asked Mrs. Denison.  “This is being a little too proud, my friend.  It is throwing rather too much upon the lady, who must be wooed if she would be won.”

“A lady has eyes,” said Paul.

“Granted.”

“And a lady’s eyes can speak as well as her lips.  If she likes the man who approaches her, let her say so with her eyes.  She will not be misunderstood.”

“You are a man,” replied Mrs. Denison, a little impatiently; “and, from the beginning, man has not been able to comprehend woman!  If you wait for a woman worth having to tell you, even with her eyes, that she likes you, and this before you have given a sign, you will wait until the day of doom.  A true woman holds herself at a higher price!”

There was silence between the parties for the space of nearly a minute.  Then Paul Hendrickson said—­

“Few women can resist the attraction of gold.  Creatures of taste—­lovers of the beautiful—­fond of dress, equipage, elegance—­I do not wonder that we who have little beyond ourselves to offer them, find simple manhood light in the balance.”

And he sighed heavily.

“It is because true men are not true to themselves and the true women Heaven wills to cross their paths in spring-time, that so many of them fail to secure the best for life-companions!” answered Mrs. Denison.  “Worth is too retiring or too proud.  Either diffidence or self-esteem holds it back in shadow.  I confess myself to be sorely puzzled at times with the phenomenon.  Why should the real man shrink away, and let the meretricious fop and the man ‘made of money’ win the beautiful and the best?  Women are not such fools as to prefer tinsel to gold—­the outside making up to the inner manhood!  Neither are they so dim-sighted that they cannot perceive who is the man and who the ‘fellow.’  My word for it, if Miss Loring’s mind was known, you have a higher place therein than Dexter.”

Just then the two persons of whom they were speaking passed near to them, Miss Loring on the arm of Dexter, her face radiant with smiles.  He was saying something to which she was listening, evidently pleased with his remarks.  The sight chafed the mind of Hendrickson, and he said, sarcastically—­

“Like all the rest, Mrs. Denison!  Gold is the magnet.”

“You are in a strange humor to-night, Paul,” answered his friend, “and your humor makes you unjust.  It is not fair to judge Miss Loring in this superficial way.  Because she is cheerful and social in a company like this, are you to draw narrow conclusions touching her heart-preferences?”

“Why was she not as cheerful and as social with me, as she is now with that fellow?” said the young man, a measure of indignation in the tones of his voice.  “Answer me that, if you please.”