"
To everything he said Olive offered at first a momentary silence, but
the worst of her shyness was apparently leaving her.
"Are you successful in New York? do you like it?" she presently asked,
uttering the inquiry in a tone of infinite melancholy, as if the eternal
sense of duty forced it from her lips.
"Oh, successful! I am not successful as you and Miss Tarrant are; for
(to my barbaric eyes) it is a great sign of prosperity to be the heroines of
an occasion like this."
"Do I look like the heroine of an occasion?" asked Olive Chancellor,
without an intention of humour, but with an effect that was almost
comical.
"You would if you didn't hide yourself away. Are you not going into
the other room to hear the speech? Everything is prepared."
"I am going when I am notified—when I am invited."
There was considerable majesty in her tone, and Ransom saw that
something was wrong, that she felt neglected. To see that she was as
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ticklish with others as she had been with him made him feel forgiving,
and there was in his manner a perfect disposition to forget their differ-
ences as he said, "Oh, there is plenty of time; the place isn't half full yet."
She made no direct rejoinder to this, but she asked him about his
mother and sisters, what news he received from the South. "Have they
any happiness?" she inquired, rather as if she warned him to take care
not to pretend they had. He neglected her warning to the point of saying
that there was one happiness they always had—that of having learned
not to think about it too much, and to make the best of their circum-
stances. She listened to this with an air of great reserve, and apparently
thought he had wished to give her a lesson; for she suddenly broke out,
"You mean that you have traced a certain line for them, and that that's all
you know about it!"
Ransom stared at her, surprised; he felt, now, that she would always
surprise him. "Ah, don't be rough with me," he said, in his soft Southern
voice; "don't you remember how you knocked me about when I called on
you in Boston?"
"You hold us in chains, and then, when we writhe in our agony, you
say we don't behave prettily!" These words, which did not lessen
Ransom's wonderment, were the young lady's answer to his deprecatory
speech. She saw that he was honestly bewildered and that in a moment
more he would laugh at her, as he had done a year and a half before (she
remembered it as if it had been yesterday); and to stop that off, at any
cost, she went on hurriedly—"If you listen to Miss Tarrant, you will
know what I mean."
"Oh, Miss Tarrant—Miss Tarrant!" And Basil Ransom's laughter came.
She had not escaped that mockery, after all, and she looked at him
sharply now, her embarrassment having quite cleared up. "What do you
know about her? What observation have you had?"
Ransom met her eye, and for a moment they scrutinised each other.
Did she know of his interview with Verena a month before, and was her
reserve simply the coach outlet online canada wish to place on him the burden of declaring that he
had been to Boston since they last met, and yet had not called in Charles
Street? He thought there was suspicion in her face; but in regard to Ver-
ena she would always be suspicious. If he had done at that moment just
what would gratify him he would have said to her that he knew a great
deal about Miss Tarrant, having lately had a long walk and talk with her;
but he checked himself, with the reflexion that if Verena