"Not quite. It escapes that by being constitutional amiability and grace; but if it wasn't constitutional amiability and grace it would be cleverness, and you would resent it. As it is, you like her for it. She is pretty and charming, and has her little world at her feet, and yet her manner is such that you find yourself wondering if she even suspects it." "Does she?" asked Tredennis. Mrs. Sylvestre turned her attention to the other side of the room. "There is Mr. Sylvestre," she said, serenely. "He is coming to us. You must know each other." And then Mr. Sylvestre sauntered up. He was a very handsome man, with a rather languid air, which remotely suggested that if he took off his manners and folded them away he would reveal the unadorned fact that he was bored. But even he bestirred himself a little when Tredennis' relationship to the Herricks was mentioned. "What!" he said. "You are Mrs. Amory's cousin?" "Only third or fourth," responded Tredennis. "By Jove! You're in luck!" his new acquaintance returned. "Third or fourth is near enough. I wouldn't object to sixth, myself. Do you see her often?" "I have not seen her for seven years." Mr. Sylvestre bestowed a critical glance upon him. "What's the matter with you?" he inquired, languidly. "There's something radically wrong about a man who neglects his opportunities in that way." He paused and smiled, showing his white teeth through his mustache. "Oh, she's a clever little dev"--He pulled himself up with remarkable adroitness. "She's very clever," he said. "She's delightfully clever." "She must be," commented Tredennis, unenthusiastically. "I never hear her mentioned without its being added that she is very clever." "You would be likely to find the thing out for yourself when you met her--even if you hadn't heard it," said Mr. Sylvestre. When Tredennis returned to his room that night he sat down to read, deliberately choosing a complicated work which demanded the undivided attention of the peruser. He sat before it for half an hour, with bent brow and unyielding demeanor; but at the end of that time he pushed it aside, left his seat, and began to pace the floor, and so walked with a gloomy face until it was long past midnight when he put out the light and went to bed. CHAPTER III.