The Bostonians, Vol. II

'Seen Olive? I have seen nothing else!'

'I mean Miss Tarrant. She must be somewhere—in the place—if she's to speak to-night.'

'Should you like me to go out and look for her? Il ne manquerait plus que cela!' cried Mrs. Luna. 'What's the matter with you, Basil Ransom, and what are you after?' she demanded, with considerable sharpness. She had tried haughtiness and she had tried humility, but they brought her equally face to face with a competitor whom she couldn't take seriously, yet who was none the less objectionable for all that.

I know not whether Ransom would have attempted to answer her question had an obstacle not presented itself; at any rate, at the moment she spoke, the curtain in the doorway was pushed aside, and a visitor crossed the threshold. 'Mercy! how provoking!' Mrs. Luna exclaimed, audibly enough; and without moving from her place she bent an uncharitable eye upon the invader, a gentleman whom Ransom had the sense of having met before. He was a young man with a fresh face and abundant locks, prematurely white; he stood smiling at Mrs. Luna, quite undaunted by the absence of any demonstration in his favour. She looked as if she didn't know him, while Ransom prepared to depart, leaving them to settle it together.

'I'm afraid you don't remember me, though I have seen you before,' said the young man, very amiably. 'I was here a week ago, and Miss Chancellor presented me to you.'

'Oh yes; she's not at home now,' Mrs. Luna returned vaguely.

'So I was told—but I didn't let that prevent me.' And the young man included Basil Ransom in the smile with which he made himself more welcome than Mrs. Luna appeared disposed to make him, and by which he seemed to call attention to his superiority. 'There is a matter on which I want very much to obtain some information, and I have no doubt you will be so good as to give it to me.'

'It comes back to me—you have something to do with the newspapers,' said Mrs. Luna; and Ransom too, by this time, had placed the young man among his reminiscences. He had been at Miss Birdseye's famous party, and Doctor Prance had there described him as a brilliant journalist.

It was quite with the air of such a personage that he accepted Mrs. Luna's definition, and he continued to radiate towards Ransom (as if, in return, he remembered his face), while he dropped, confidentially, the word that expressed everything—'The Vesper, don't you know?' Then he went on: 'Now, Mrs. Luna, I don't care, I'm not going to let you off! We want the last news about Miss Verena, and it has got to come out of this house.'

'Oh murder!' Ransom muttered, beneath his breath, taking up his hat.

'Miss Chancellor has hidden her away; I have been scouring the city in search of her, and her own father hasn't seen her for a week. We have got his ideas; they are very easy to get, but that isn't what we want.'

'And what do you want?' Ransom was now impelled to inquire, as Mr. Pardon (even the name at present came back to him) appeared sufficiently to have introduced himself.

'We want to know how she feels about to-night; what report she makes of her nerves, her anticipations; how she looked, what she had on, up to six o'clock. Gracious! if I could see her I should know what I wanted, and so would she, I guess!' Mr. Pardon exclaimed. 'You must know something, Mrs. Luna; it isn't natural you shouldn't. I won't inquire any further where she is, because that might seem a little pushing, if she does wish to withdraw herself—though I am bound to say I think she makes a mistake; we could work up these last hours for her! But can't you tell me any little personal items—the sort of thing the people like? What is she going to have for supper? or is she going to speak—a—without previous nourishment?'

'Really, sir, I don't know, and I don't in the least care; I have nothing to do with the business!' Mrs. Luna cried angrily.

The reporter stared; then, eagerly, 'You have nothing to do with it—you take an unfavourable view, you protest?' And he was already feeling in a side-pocket for his notebook.

'Mercy on us! are you going to put that in the paper?' Mrs. Luna exclaimed; and in spite of the sense, detestable to him, that everything he wished most to avert was fast closing over the girl, Ransom broke into cynical laughter.

'Ah, but do protest, madam; let us at least have that fragment!' Mr. Pardon went on. 'A protest from this house would be a charming note. We must have it—we've got nothing else! The public are almost as much interested in your sister as they are in Miss Verena; they know to what extent she has backed her: and I should be so delighted (I see the heading, from here, so attractive!) just to take down 'What Miss Chancellor's Family Think about It!''

Mrs. Luna sank into the nearest chair, with a groan, covering her face with her hands. 'Heaven help me, I am glad I am going to Europe!'

'That is another little item—everything counts,' said Matthias Pardon, making a rapid entry in his tablets. 'May I inquire whether you are going to Europe in consequence of your disapproval of your sister's views?'

Mrs. Luna sprang up again, almost snatching the memoranda out of his hand. 'If you have the impertinence to publish a word about me, or to mention my name in print, I will come to your office and make such a scene!'

'Dearest lady, that would be a godsend!' Mr. Pardon cried enthusiastically; but he put his notebook back into his pocket.

'Have you made an exhaustive search for Miss Tarrant?' Basil Ransom asked of him. Mr. Pardon, at this inquiry, eyed him with a sudden, familiar archness, expressive of the idea of competition; so that Ransom added: 'You needn't be afraid, I'm not a reporter.'

'I didn't know but what you had come on from New York.'

'So I have—but not as the representative of a newspaper.'

'Fancy his taking you——' Mrs. Luna murmured, with indignation.

'Well, I have been everywhere I could think of,' Mr. Pardon remarked. 'I have been hunting round after your sister's agent, but I haven't been able to catch up with him; I suppose he has been hunting on his side. Miss Chancellor told me—Mrs. Luna may remember it—that she shouldn't be here at all during the week, and that she preferred not to tell me either where or how she was to spend her time until the momentous evening. Of course I let her know that I should find out if I could, and you may remember,' he said to Mrs. Luna, 'the conversation we had on the subject. I remarked, candidly, that if they didn't look out they would overdo the quietness. Doctor Tarrant has felt very low about it. However, I have done what I could with the material at my command, and the