"Capitally! I have been passing the afternoon with Miss Thomas." "And how was she? Fascinating as ever?" "_Fascinating_ is not the word I like to use of her. It implies conscious effort." Vane was evidently off on a thesis, and Haviland settled himself on the sofa with a pipe. "I have seen many women whom the world calls fascinating, and they never attracted me at all. We look, admire and pass on. Now, Miss Thomas has all the brightness of a woman of the world, with the simplicity of a country maiden. If she has any charm, it is because she is just herself, as Nature made her." Vane spoke with the air of a knight defending abandoned beauty. "By the way (if you have finished your essay on an inamorata), I saw Ten Eyck to-day. He has come back from London, with a chance of being ambassador to Madrid, and is a better match than ever." "Ten Eyck? Who is Ten Eyck? Oh! I remember. Well, and what of it?" Vane added, after a pause. "Oh! nothing, nothing at all. He is the son of one of our New York Senators, you know; and has a brilliant future before him." "Bah! The most brilliant future a woman can have is a future with a man who loves her." "And where did you pick up that aphorism? Not from your French education, surely? I believe Miss Thomas loves him." "I may not be up in American ideas, John, owing to the French education you sneer at; but I certainly was brought up to resent a remark like that, made of a young girl I like." "I don't see what there is insulting in saying that a woman--for she is a woman, as you yourself admit--loves a man. I think it rather a compliment. American women rarely do, I can assure you. Their natures are like a New England spring--the sun must do a devilish deal of wooing before even so much as a green tendril is visible." And Haviland, who was just then devoted to the young lady of Puritan descent whom he has since married, fetched a deep sigh. Vane began to laugh again. "Well, well. In time, I, too, shall become a New Yorker. And by the way, John, speaking of that--is it customary here to invite a young lady to go to walk with you?" "Why, certainly, if you like. Miss Thomas has gone many a time, I fancy." "I was not thinking of Miss Thomas," said Vane, pettishly. VIII. VANE had not intended to go to Mrs. Roster's ball the next night; but he went, nevertheless. Vane was always a rather cynical spectator at large parties in New York. Somehow, it was so different from all that he had hoped; it was so like Paris, with more frivolity and fewer social gifts. A cynic is commonly a snubbed sentimentalist, who takes it out in growling. Vane had sought the world because he was lonely; but it seemed to him more than ever that he was much less lonely when alone. It is isolation, not loneliness, that saddens a man of sense; for his sense tells him that it is the world which is likely to be right, and proves him a solitary fool.