Nor could she understand it now; yet she was aware, instinctively, that she was on the verge of the temptation and the opportunity; that there existed a subtle something in this man, in herself, that tempted to conventional relaxation.

In all her repressed, regulated, and self-suppressed career, all that had ever been in her of latent daring, of feminine audacity, of caprice, of perverse provocation, stirred in her now, quickening with the slightest acceleration of her pulses.
Apparently a man of her own caste, yet she had never been so obscurely stirred by a man of her own caste--had never instinctively divined in other men the streak which this man, from the first interchange of words, had brought out in her.
Aware of his attraction, hazily convinced that she had no confidence in him, the curious temptation persisted and grew; and she felt very young and very guilty like a small child consenting to parley with another child whose society has been forbidden.

And it seemed to her that somehow she had already demeaned herself by the tentative toward a common understanding with an intellect and principles of a grade inferior to her own.
"That was a very pretty woman you were so devoted to in the Adirondacks," she said.
He recalled the incident with a pleasant frankness which left her unconvinced.
Suddenly it came over her that she had had enough of him--more than was good for her, and she sat up straight, primly retying her neckerchief.
"To-morrow ?" he was saying, too civilly; but on her way to the pavilion she could not remember what she had replied, or how she had rid herself of him.
Inside the pavilion she saw Hamil and Shiela Cardross, already dressed, watching the lively occupants of the swimming-pool; and she exchanged a handshake with the former and a formal nod with the latter.
"Garret, your aunt is worrying because somebody told her that there are snakes in the district where you are at work.

Come in some evening and reassure her." And to Shiela: "So sorry you cannot come to my luncheon, Miss Cardross .-- You _are_ Miss Cardross, aren't you?
I've been told otherwise." Hamil looked up, pale and astounded; but Shiela answered, undisturbed: "My sister Cecile is the younger; yes, I am Miss Cardross." And Hamil realised there had been two ways of interpreting Virginia's question, and he reddened, suddenly appalled at his own knowledge and at his hasty and gross conclusions.
If Shiela noticed the quick changes in his face she did not appear to, nor the curious glance that Virginia cast at him.
"_So_ sorry," said Miss Suydam again, "for if you are going to be so much engaged to-day you will no doubt also miss the tea for that pretty Mrs.Ascott." "No," said Shiela, "I wouldn't think of missing that." And carelessly to Hamil: "As you and I have nothing on hand to-day, I'll take you over to meet Mrs.Ascott if you like." Which was a notice to Virginia that Miss Cardross had declined her luncheon from deliberate disinclination.
Hamil, vaguely conscious that all was not as agreeable as the surface of things indicated, said cordially that he'd be very glad to go anywhere with Shiela to meet anybody, adding to Virginia that he'd heard of Mrs.
Ascott but could not remember when or where.
"Probably you've heard of her often enough from Louis Malcourt," said Virginia.

"He and I were just recalling his frenzied devotion to her in the Adirondacks; that," she added smilingly to Shiela, "was before Mrs.
Ascott got her divorce from her miserable little French count and resumed her own name.