The tinge of melancholy in Mr. Carlyle's manner had, however, no effect like repression of the cordial friendliness he extended to the newcomer. Vance had gone to rest with a feeling that he had conferred a genuine favor upon his two elders by according to them, as he had, his company. Spite of these conditions of good-fellowship, he awoke next morning conscious that there was one under the roof with him who had the power (and no desire to withhold it) to make him far from comfortable; to puzzle him, to banter him, to pull him up with a jerk at the moment he might feel that he was getting reasonably ahead with her; to punish him, it would appear, for some offence he could not own to having committed. It was very clear that Eve thought him a poor fellow, mentally and morally; that, apart from her specific grudge against him, of nature unknown, she was not in the least inclined to pay tribute to his position, fashion, culture, wealth,--the appendages of Vance Townsend's personality people around him had always been disposed to make so much of. In the firmament of American society, he took himself to be a planet of first importance. In other lands, he had enjoyed more than a reasonable share of social success. Why should he here, for the first time in his life, feel like a man coming in fancy costume to a dinner where all the other guests wore plain clothes? It must be the doing of that girl. She it was who, with a few words, a cool glance or two that appeared to read his soul, had brought him into this strait; and Vance was still young enough to feel himself flame with resentment of her. Then fell upon his mental ear the soft cadence of her voice, asking his pardon for having possibly misjudged him, and his anger passed. As from Eve he went on to think of Kitty Ainger, now Mrs. Crawford, Vance was surprised at the freedom from soreness the reflection left upon his mind. Mrs. Crawford, he even reflected, was really an admirable woman--just the wife, as everybody had said, for a rising fellow like Crawford, who would surely reach the top! She had shown her good sense in taking him. Was it possible Vance had ever thought anything else? On a table near the bed lay the contents of a pocket emptied overnight--among them a folded paper, inscribed with the latest and most satisfactory draft of his verses to Kitty. This he now seized, and, upon re-reading it, a flush that was not of tender consciousness overspread his face. Regardless of the loss to the world of poetry, ignoring the recurrent efforts that Calliope had witnessed, he deliberately tore it up, and went to the open window prepared to scatter the tiny remnants upon a matin breeze.