Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/378

KATE’S WINTER IN WABHINGTON. 343 help to Lily—your influence over her is so exactly what she needs.”

“It will not be disturbed, Mr. Marsden, I have no cause to be vexed-—am jsure I shall have none; but no matter what Mr. Everett might he to me, I am not quite one of those silly women who vent their rage on another woman and excuse the man.”

“I might have known that! Then Lily’s idea is true?”

‘What is that?”

'Don’t think me impertinent! You know I have learned. to feel as if you were)a dear, younger sister; anything that concdrns you, in- terests me. You are engaged to Harry Everett?”

“Conditionally, yes.”

“I am sorry! Don't think I mean anything against him; he is a fine fellow, as far as he goes. But I should hate to'see you marry any young chap; with your talents,you ought to become the wife of a man of established position, one with the hope of a great future before him.”

Then he went on as if he believed her a happy combination between Joan of Arc and Corinne, with a large portion ef the angelic element thrown in; and it was so beautifully done, that any woman would; have taken it for earnest.

Then they were at Kate’s home, and it was getting late, so she had only time to dress for dinner, and after that to dress for the party; and all the while her brain was in a whirl between hosts of contending thoughts. Marsden’s praise, her anger at Everett, her doubts as to what she ought, to do; and into the bargain, some wonderful part she was to play in some scheme of Philip’s, which was to do so much good in some direction; and to further which, she was to essay her powers of persuasion upon her uncle, and several of his intimates among his senatorial brethren.

It was very late when she and Mrs: Fairficld reached the Hansons; and the first sight she saw, as she entered the parlors, was Everett holding Lily Marsden in his arms, and flying about in the very swiftest of deus temps measures.

Most women glory in being inconsistent themselves; but it is a privilege they are not willing to accord the male portion of humaaity—and Kate was more angry than ever.

When Everett came up to her, at the close of the dance, she snubbed him beautifully and un- mercifully; kept the best men in the room about her; got her spirits up to fever-heat, and before supper-time was just excited and crazy enough to enjoy and believe in all the stilted nonsense, beautiful sophistries, and devil-born: theories, to which Philip Marsden found an opportunity of treating her.

Mrs. Lily had no mind to relinquish her prey, and Everett yielded like a mad man; and the pair rather astonished even a Washington balk room. I don’t know that I could say more.

It was just as they were going into supper that Lily got close to Kate, and whispered,

‘Are you vexed with me? Phil is furious.”

'Not a bit,” said Kate.

‘You're a duck! My dear, I only wanted to prove to you what that man is made of! I am as sure as I am of being alive that he has abused me to you like a pickpocket, and yet you see.”

Then Philip, with his mournful voi¢e, and his great eyes, that ought to have belonged to a poet, said,

«It is not for myself, Kate—I am not jealous; but I can’t bear to see Lily seem to do a heartless thing by you.”

“I understand Lily’s motive perfectly,” she replied. ‘I am not in the least vexed, with her—rather obliged than otherwise.”

“Please let me take you into supper. I have scarcely been able to get near you all the evening.”

“Of course you shall.”

«And I want you to be civil to Jo Vance. He can do so much in that matter.”

And Jo Vance—always called that in spite of his being a Senator—had a reputation for infamous vices of all sorts, that ought to have made him shunned as a moral pestilence. To-night he was rather more sober than usual; and there Kate stood and talked with him, and smiled at him, and imagined she was doing political strategy, and by her conduct that evening fully established the fact of her being “‘fast;” and when a girl has once done that, she may do penance im sackcloth and ashes, the name will cling to her, and the most trivial act be judged accordingly.

Everett saw and heard it all—the whispers, the glances exchanged among the women; and he realized fully the harm Kate was doing hevself, and understood that it was precisely what Ciree and her husband had intended to bring about,

“For God’s sake stop! let me speak to you,” he whispered, as Marsden was leading her out of the supper-room.

«‘Excuse me one moment,”’ she said to Marsden. ‘The next waltz is yours—I shan’t forget.”

She turned to Everett, and allowed him to draw her a little out of the crowd.