While strolling with this lady on the piazza he observed the object of his quest, and was at once compelled to make more allowance than he had done hitherto for his friend’s discomfiture.  Two or three children were leaning over the young girl’s chair, and she was amusing them by some clever caricatures.  She was not so interested, however, but that she soon noted the new-comer, and bestowed upon him from time to time curious and furtive glances.  That these were not returned seemed to occasion her some surprise, for she was not accustomed to be so utterly ignored, even by a stranger.  A little later Ackland saw her consulting the hotel register.

“I have at least awakened her curiosity,” he thought.

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask me who that pretty girl is,” said Mrs. Alton, laughing; “you do indeed exceed all men in indifference to women.”

“I know all about that girl,” was the grim reply.  “She has played the very deuce with my friend Munson.”

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Alston, indignantly, “it was the most shameful piece of coquetry I ever saw.  She is a puzzle to me.  To the children and the old people in the house she is consideration and kindness itself; but she appears to regard men of your years as legitimate game and is perfectly remorseless.  So beware!  She is dangerous, invulnerable as you imagine yourself to be.  She will practice her wiles upon you if you give her half a chance, and her art has much more than her pretty face to enforce it.  She is unusually clever.”

Ackland’s slight shrug was so contemptuous that his cousin was nettled, and she thought, “I wish the girl could disturb his complacent equanimity just a little.  It vexes one to see a man so indifferent; it’s a slight to woman;” and she determined to give Miss Van Tyne the vantage-ground of an introduction at the first opportunity.

And this occurred before the evening was over.  To her surprise Ackland entered into an extended conversation with the enemy.  “Well,” she thought, “if he begins in this style there will soon be another victim.  Miss Van Tyne can talk to as bright a man as he is and hold her own.  Meanwhile she will assail him in a hundred covert ways.  Out of regard for his friend he should have shown some disapproval of her; but there he sits quietly talking in the publicity of the parlor.”

“Mrs. Alston,” said a friend at her elbow, “you ought to forewarn your cousin and tell him of Mr. Munson’s fate.”

“He knows all about Mr. Munson,” was her reply.  “Indeed, the latter is his most intimate friend.  I suppose my cousin is indulging in a little natural curiosity concerning this destroyer of masculine peace, and if ever a man could do so in safety he can.”

“Why so?”

“Well, I never knew so unsusceptible a man.  With the exception of a few of his relatives, he has never cared for ladies’ society.”