"
"Indeed! Why?"
"Oh, for the sake of being engaged, being a heroine, being talked about.
She likes to be talked about, this bewildering fairy of yours. She isn't
in love with any of you; that I can see. It isn't in her shallow nature,
I suppose, to be in love with anybody but her own precious self."
"My dear Mrs. Walraven, are you not a little severe? Poor, blue-eyed
Mollie! And you think, if I speak to-night, I stand a chance?"
"A better chance than if you defer it. She may say 'yes' on the impulse
of the moment. If she does, trust me to make her keep her word."
"How?"
"That is my affair. Ah! what, was that?"
The cousins were standing near one of the long, richly draped windows,
and the silken hangings had fluttered suddenly.
"Nothing but the wind," replied Dr. Oleander, carelessly. "Very well,
Blanche, I take you at your word. I will ask Mollie to-night."
Mrs. Walraven nodded, and turned to go.
"Ask her as quickly as possible. You are to dance the polka quadrille
with her, are you not? After the polka quadrille, then. And now let us
part, or they will begin to think we are hatching another Gunpowder
Plot.
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