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 having refused a half-hearted invitation to go calling with him again. And he was not shrewd enough to see that Conroy had been avoiding him. He only envied his cousin's opportunities of hearing her music; and when she told him that her mother, at last, had gone to a southern winter resort for the next two months, he said: "I wish they'd all go away, I want to hear you play again, and I can't hear you when they're all—talking."

"I wish they would, too," she replied. "They treat me as if they thought I was a baby that shouldn't be left alone with anyone for five minutes! They're speaking, now, of going to the Conversat—without ever asking me whether I should like to go. I suppose mother has been telling them I'm too young to be going out."

"I suppose."

"Are you going?"

He shook his head. "No."

As he was parting from her, she said: "If they all go to the Conversat without me, I'll just play to you, that night, as much as you like."

He passed the next few days in a prayerful expectation that they would go to the affair without her. They did so; and they were not more than well out of the house, before he rang the bell and heard her open the inside door and call back to the maid: "I'll go, Maggie."

She received him under the red gas-globe of the outer hall with a mischievous affectation of surprise.