“But there are several who would marry Constance in a minute if she’d only give any one of them the smallest encouragement; and that’s what I mean when I complain of her being so unimpressionable.  Muriel and Doris like our set of men well enough, and I don’t see what right she has to be so over-particular.”

Mrs. Ferguson rose and began the adjustment of her wrap, while saying, “It seems to me there is but one thing for you to do, Anne.”

“What?” eagerly questioned Mrs. Durant.

“Indulge in a little judicious matchmaking,” suggested the friend, as she held out her hand.

“It’s utterly useless, Josie.  I’ve tried again and again, and every time have only done harm.”

“How?”

“She won’t—­she is so suspicious.  Now, last winter, Weston Curtis was sending her flowers and—­and, oh, all that sort of thing, and so I invited him to dinner several times, and always put him next Constance, and tried to help him in other ways, until she—­well, what do you think that girl did?”

Mrs. Ferguson’s interest led her to drop her outstretched hand.  “Requested you not to?” she asked.

“Not one word did she have the grace to say to me, Josie, but she wrote to him, and asked him not to send her any more flowers!  Just think of it.”

“Then that’s why he went to India.”

“Yes.  Of course if she had come and told me she didn’t care for him, I never would have kept on inviting him; but she is so secretive it is impossible to tell what she is thinking about.  I never dreamed that she was conscious that I was trying to—­to help her; and I have always been so discreet that I think she never would have been if Mr. Durant hadn’t begun to joke about it.  Only guess, darling, what he said to me once right before her, just as I thought I was getting her interested in young Schenck!”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Oh, it was some of his Wall Street talk about promoters of trusts always securing options on the properties to be taken in, before attempting a consolidation, or something of that sort.  I shouldn’t have known what he meant if the boys hadn’t laughed and looked at Constance.  And then Jack made matters worse by saying that my interest would be satisfied with common stock, but Constance would only accept preferred for hers.  Men do blurt things out so—­and yet they assert that we women haven’t tongue discretion.  No, dear, with them about it’s perfectly useless for me to do so much as lift a finger to marry Constance off, let alone her own naturally distrustful nature.”

“Well, then, can’t you get some one to do it for you—­some friend of hers?”

“I don’t believe there is a person in the world who could influence Constance as regards marriage,” moaned Mrs. Durant.  “Don’t think that I want to sacrifice her, dear; but she really isn’t happy herself—­for—­well—­she is a stepdaughter, you know—­and so can never quite be the same in the family life; and now that she has tired of society, she really doesn’t find enough to do to keep busy.  Constance wanted to go into the Settlement work, but her father wouldn’t hear of it—­and really, Josie, every one would be happier and better if she only would marry—­”