“May be so,” said the other; “but after my experience I don’t think it such a blissful state that I want to round up all my friends and drive them into the corral, whether they want to go or not.” Mrs. Shackleton looked down for a pondering moment. She was evidently not listening. Raising her head she met Mrs. Willers’ half-sad, half-twinkling eyes with a gaze of keen scrutiny, and said: “Then if it isn’t a love affair, what is it that’s made Miss Moreau change her mind?” “Ah!” Mrs. Willers shrugged her shoulders. “That’s what I’d like to know as well as you. I can only say what it’s not.” “And that’s Barry Essex. Well, Mrs. Willers, you’re a smart woman, but you know your business better than you do the vagaries of young girls. I don’t know Miss Moreau well, but I’d like to bet that I understand her this time better than you do.” She smiled genially and held out her hand. “My ten minutes are up,” nodding at the clock. “And I’m too much of a business woman to outstay my time limit. No”--in answer to Mrs. Willers’ polite demur--“I must go.” She moved toward the door, then paused and said: “Isn’t Essex a sort of Frenchman? Or wasn’t he, anyway, brought up in Paris, or had a French mother, or something?” “As to his mother,” said Mrs. Willers, sourly, “the Lord alone knows who she was. I’ve heard she was everything from the daughter of a duke to a snake-charmer in a dime museum. But he told me he was born and partly educated in Paris, and Madame Bertrand, at the Rôtisserie, tells me he must have been, as he talks real French French, not the kind you learn out of a book.” “He certainly looks like a Frenchman,” said the departing guest. “Well, good by. It’s a sort of bond between us to try to settle to her advantage this silly girl who doesn’t want to be settled. If you hear any more of her affair with Essex, you might let me know. In spite of my criticisms, I take the greatest interest in her. I wouldn’t criticize if I didn’t.” As Mrs. Shackleton was slowly descending the long stairs, Mrs. Willers still stood beside her desk, thinking. The visit had surprised her in the beginning. Now it left her feeling puzzled and vaguely disturbed. Why did Mrs. Shackleton seem to be so desirous of thinking that Mariposa was betrothed to Essex? The bonanza king’s widow was a woman of large charities and carelessly magnificent generosities, but she was also a woman of keen insight and unwavering common sense. Her interest in Mariposa was as strong as her husband’s, and was entirely explainable as his had been, in the light of their old acquaintance with the girl’s father. What Mrs. Willers could not understand was how any person, who had Mariposa Moreau’s welfare at heart, could derive satisfaction from the thought of her marrying Barry Essex. CHAPTER XVII FRIEND AND BROTHER “Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and by it there is profit to them that see the sun.”--ECCLESIASTES.