“Is it possible? Do you mean business? Then she is—in society?” “_Mr._ Kendricks!” cried Mrs. March, with burlesque severity. “Do you think that I would offer you a heroine who was _not_ in society? You forget that I am from Boston!” “Of course, of course! I understand that any heroine of your acquaintance must be in society. But I thought—I didn’t know—but for the moment—Saratoga seems to be so tremendously mixed; and Mr. March says there is no society here: But if she is from Boston—” “I didn’t say she was from Boston, Mr. Kendricks.” “Oh, I beg your pardon!” “She is from De Witt Point,” said Mrs. March, and she apparently enjoyed his confusion, no less than my bewilderment at the course she was taking. I was not going to be left behind, though, and I said: “I discovered this heroine myself, Kendricks, and if there is to be any giving away—” “Now, Basil!” “I am going to do it. Mrs. March would never have cared anything about her if it hadn’t been for me. I can’t let her impose on you. This heroine is no more in society than she is from Boston. That is the trouble with her. She has come here for society, and she can’t find any.” “Oh, that was what you were hinting at this morning,” said Kendricks. “I thought it a pure figment of the imagination.” “One doesn’t imagine such things as that, my dear fellow. One imagines a heroine coming here, and having the most magnificent kind of social career—lawn-parties, lunches, teas, dinners, picnics, hops—and going back to De Witt Point with a dozen offers of marriage. That’s the kind of work the imagination does. But this simple and appealing situation—this beautiful young girl, with her poor little illusions, her secret hopes half hidden from herself, her ignorant past, her visionary future—” “Now, _I_ am going to tell you all about her, Mr. Kendricks,” Mrs. March broke in upon me, with defiance in her eye; and she flung out the whole fact with a rapidity of utterance that would have left far behind any attempt of mine. But I made no attempt to compete with her; I contented myself with a sarcastic silence which I could see daunted her a little at last. “And all that we’ve done, my dear fellow”—I took in irony the word she left to me—“is to load ourselves up with these two impossible people, to go their security to destiny, and answer for their having a good time. We’re in luck.” “Why, I don’t know,” said Kendricks, and I could see that his fancy was beginning to play with the situation; “I don’t see why it isn’t a charming scheme.” “Of course it is,” cried Mrs. March, taking a little heart from his courage. “We can’t make out yet whether the girl is interesting,” I put in maliciously. “That is what _you_ say,” said my wife. “She is very shy, and of course she wouldn’t show out her real nature to you. I found her _very_ interesting.” “Now, Isabel!” I protested. “She is fascinating,” the perverse woman persisted. “She has a fascinating dulness.”