"Because he has settled a million dollars on her," answers his mother, "she is all the more difficult to win. It is a marvel to me that she, the belle of New York last season and of Newport this summer, has kept herself apart from entangling alliances with other men. Two months ago, if she had loved that young Polo Blazer, you would have lost her then." "You don't mean to say she loves that Vigilante--that mining fellow?" says Oliver, turning pale at his mother's suggestion. "If she doesn't love him she will love some man," returns his mother grimly. "Don't you know that a girl with her beauty and her money is bound to be sought after and will be won by somebody?" "By me!" cries Ollie hotly. "Hang me if she shall marry any other man!" Then he says plaintively, "I have considered her my own for a year." "Very well," replies Mrs. Livingston; "you had better act as if you did. Miss Travenion's attitude to you has been one of indifference. She saw no one whom she liked better. Besides, girls enjoy being made love to. Perhaps Captain Lawrence last night in Ogden in the moonlight was more of a Romeo than you have been. He looks as if he might be." "Does he?" cries Ollie. "I'll show him that I can play the romantic as well as he," and going out, he, for the first time in his life--for he is a good young man--says to himself, "Damn!" and then becomes frightened and soliloquizes: "Oh gracious, that is the first time I ever swore." So going to the theatre and coming therefrom he assists Erma into the carriage with squeezes of her hand that make her wince, and little amatory ogles of the eyes that make her blush. Coming from the theatre, they go to "Happy Jack's," the swell restaurant of the city in 1871, where they have a very pretty little room prepared for them, and trout caught fresh in a mountain stream that day, and chickens done to a turn, and the freshest of lettuce and some lovely pears and grapes from Payson gardens and vineyards, and a bottle of champagne from sunny France, some of which gets into Mr. Ollie's head and makes him so devoted in his attentions to the young lady who sits beside him, that, getting a chance, he surreptitiously squeezes her hand under the table, which makes Erma think him tipsy with wine, not love. From this they return to the Townsend House, where the party separating, Miss Travenion finds herself alone at the door of her own room; but just before she enters, Mr. Oliver comes along the hallway, and walking up to her, says, with eyes that have grown fiery: "Erma, how can you treat me so coldly when I love you?" "Why, when did that love idea come into your head?" returns the young lady with a jeering laugh.