“Is it that Mrs. Winthrop hopes to marry van Tuiver to her daughter?” asked Sylvia, crossly. “Oh, no,” said Bates. “He is to marry Dorothy Cortlandt—that was arranged when they were babies, and Mrs. Winthrop wouldn’t dream of cutting in on it.” “But then, if I haven’t robbed Edith——” “My dear Miss Castleman,” said the other, “you’ve robbed Mrs. Winthrop herself.” “But I don’t understand,” said the girl. “Please don’t _mis_understand,” said Bates. “It’s all perfectly proper and noble, you know—and all that. I’ve nothing to say against Mrs. Winthrop—she’s a charming woman, and has a right to be admired by everybody. But being a queen, you see, she has to have a court, with a lot of distinguished courtiers. She reads poetry to them, and they write it to her, and they sit at her feet and dream wonderful dreams, and she gazes at them. I know a dozen fellows who’ve been that way all through college; and I suppose it does them good—they tell me I haven’t any soul and can’t understand these things. What I’ve always said is, ‘Maybe you’re right, and maybe I’m a brute, but it looks to me like the same old game.’” “The same old game,” repeated Sylvia, wonderingly. She found herself thinking suddenly of one of the maxims of Lady Dee—one which she had been too young to understand, but had been made to learn nevertheless: “The young girl’s deadliest enemy is the married flirt!” Could it be that Mrs. Winthrop was anything so desperate as that? “Mr. van Tuiver is one of these poets?” she asked, finally. “I don’t think van Tuiver goes in for poetry; but he’s strong on manners and things like that, and he says that Mrs. Winthrop is the only hostess in America who has the old-world charm. Of course that ravished her, and they’ve been great chums.” “And I came and spoiled it all!” exclaimed the girl. “You came and spoiled it all!” said Bates. Sylvia sat for a while in thought. “You know, Mr. Bates,” she remarked, “it rather puzzles me that people consider Mr. van Tuiver as having distinguished manners. I really haven’t been impressed that way.” The other laughed. “My dear Miss Castleman, don’t you know that van Tuiver’s in love with you!” “No! Surely not!” “Perfectly head over heels in love with you. He’s been that way since the first moment he laid eyes on you. And the way you’ve treated him—you know you are rather high-handed. Anyhow, it’s rattled him so, he simply doesn’t know whether he’s on his head or his feet.” “Did he tell you that, Mr. Bates?” “Not in words—but by everything about him. I never saw a man so changed. Honestly, you don’t know him at all, as we’ve known him. You’d not believe it if I described him.” “Tell me what you mean?”