Victor does so readily enough. He is a slender, dark-eyed man, with a great deal of French grace in his manner. He is thirty, perhaps, and looks interesting and artistic. I see Charley (who is neither dark-eyed, interesting, nor artistic) regard him with evident disfavor. Eric is more cordial, and, while he and Sylvia talk to the stranger, Miss Dupont informs me, in a dramatic aside, that he is a charming musician, that he has been a gallant soldier, and that “we”—the Dupont family understood—are most proud of and devoted to him. “But where are you all going?” she asks, suddenly turning her attention from me to Charley, in a manner for which I am not entirely unprepared. “Victor and I have been driving aimlessly. Is there any special place to go to? Is there any particular thing to be seen?” Now, Adèle Dupont is by no means a very pretty woman, but she is a woman who makes the best of her personal appearance, and who has a grace and style that would redeem ugliness itself. She is attractive and beguiling. She knows it, and Charley knows it, too. “There are several places,” he replies. “Have you been to Beaucatcher? Have you driven out to the Swannanoa—or the French Broad?” “We came up the French Broad, you know. As for Beaucatcher—no, I have not seen it, nor the Swannanoa.” “We were just on our way to Beaucatcher,” says Mr. Dupont to Sylvia. “You had better wait until this afternoon, and join our party,” says Eric, good-naturedly. “We are going there to see the sunset.” “Yes, of course we will wait,” says Miss Dupont, graciously. “If Victor and I went alone, we should not know one mountain from another; but no doubt _you_”—the beguiling eyes again appeal to Charley—“know the names of them all.” “Not quite,” replies Charley, modestly—he really does not know a single mountain besides Pisgah, which, from its shape, is unmistakable—“but I will do my best to enlighten you.” With this arrangement we separate. The Duponts return to their phaeton. We continue our walk, discussing them the while—not altogether in a spirit of charity. “Adèle Dupont is delightful until you find that she is insincere,” says Sylvia, when Charley remarks that she is very agreeable. “A little insincerity in a woman does not matter,” says that lax young moralist, “if the result is good.” “Indeed!” says Sylvia, in a tone of sarcasm. “How edifying it is to the feeble feminine intellect to hear masculine opinions! If insincerity is not objectionable in a woman, what do you consider it in a man?” “Almost as contemptible as affectation,” Mr. Kenyon replies: “and, unless I am greatly mistaken, Monsieur Victor Dupont is a very good example of the last.” Sylvia smiles scornfully. “I have never seen an Anglo-Saxon man,” she says, “who did not consider a foreigner, or anybody with foreign manners, affected. Such judgments are—are—” “Pray don’t hesitate to say what they are,” remarks Charley, quietly, as she hesitates.