“I am astonished, papa, that you could ask him to call after all that has happened; but it is like his impudence to accept the invitation, which he might know was more an act of courtesy than a desire to renew his acquaintance.”

“Let bygones be forgotten, Dexie; it is poor policy to remember old scores too long.  It is enough that there will never be any more business relations between us.  His stay in town is likely to be short, so there is no fear that he will trouble any of us long.”

“Well, I hope you will be careful, and not say anything that he can misconstrue into an invitation to remain with us overnight.  But it will be just like him to stay, and stay, and stay, till it is too late to go back to the hotel,” said Dexie.  “But if he manages, after all, to foist himself upon us, I’ll take a cook’s privilege and leave the house—­until he is out of it in the morning, anyway.  So remember, papa, I have ‘given warning,’” and she shook her finger at him as she turned to leave the room.

But there was no frown on Gussie’s face when she heard of Plaisted’s expected visit.  She was only anxious to appear at her best, so she retired to her chamber and spent the intervening time over a toilet that was meant to impress Mr. Plaisted afresh.  She was ready as ever to turn a listening ear to his flattery, though she had ample opportunity to realize how empty and meaningless were his words.

The family were assembled in the parlor when Mr. Plaisted was announced, and he found no cause to complain of his reception, for even Dexie’s cool bow and formal greeting were so much like her former treatment of him that when she ignored his offered hand he did not resent it openly.  But in his heart he vowed to “get even” with her.  The frigid stare with which she regarded him when he attempted to draw her into conversation reminded him of past discomfitures, and, forgetting that he seldom came off victor when crossing swords with Dexie, he determined to pay off old scores with interest.  As his business kept him in town for several days, his calls were quite frequent, but he found no chance of annoying Dexie, save by the one small and spiteful way of addressing her as “Miss Dexter,” and the quick, angry glance that was flashed at him as he said it told that she resented it.

One afternoon, when he was in the parlor chatting with Gussie, Dexie came into the room on some errand, and her slight bow of recognition gave him an opportunity to ask, in his sneering manner, if she was “keeping her smiles for the disconsolate lovers she had left behind her in Halifax?”

A sharp retort rose to her lips, but she repressed it, and her lip curled with scorn as she answered his sallies in the coolest terms that common civility allowed.  He might as well have tried his cutting speeches on an iceberg for all the satisfaction he received, so he dropped back to the only source of annoyance at his command.

“Can I trouble you for a drink of water, Miss Dexter?” he said, with a malicious grin.