Geoffrey's victory;

Gladys Huntress was very beautiful that evening when she entered Mrs. Brevort’s drawing-room, leaning on the arm of Mrs. Loring, who was to present her to their hostess, while Addie and her mother followed close behind.

Her dress was blue, of elegant surah, which fell in soft, graceful folds around her, its long train making her most perfect figure seem almost regal.

It was cut, front and back, with a V shaped bodice, and this was filled in with a profusion of soft filmy lace, gathered close about her white throat, and fastened with a string of rare, gleaming pearls.

Her beautiful arms, round and as smooth as marble, were also covered, but not concealed, by sleeves of lace.

Her nut-brown hair, which shone like finest satin, had all been drawn up and coiled around the top of her head like a gleaming coronet, while a few soft, silken rings curled charmingly about her pure forehead.

There was not a flower nor an ornament about her anywhere excepting that string of pearls, but the very simplicity of her toilet was artistic and just adapted to enhance her beauty of face and form.

Everet Mapleson saw her the moment that she entered the room; indeed, he had been watching her for a half-hour or more, and his eyes glowed with admiration.

“She is a hundred fold more lovely than I thought her this afternoon,” he said, under his breath. “I shall love that girl, if I allow myself to see much of her. And why not? I believe I will set myself regularly at work to win her; thus I shall not only secure a charming little wife, but accomplish my revenge, also, for the indignity that I have received from his hands.”

He watched Gladys, while she was presented to the hostess, and was charmed with the ease and grace of her manners.

“She belongs, evidently, to a good family; she has been well reared,” he continued, “even my critical and aristocratic mamma could not fail to be satisfied with her as a daughter, although she is not particularly partial to Northern women. She reminds me of some one, too. I wonder who it can be? There is something strangely familiar in the proud way that she carries herself.”

He moved toward another portion of the room, as he saw Gladys and her friends pass on, and, seeking Mrs. Vanderwater, who, by the way, was the mother of Albert Vanderwater, Everet Mapleson’s chum and especial friend at Yale, he asked:

“Do you know the party of people who have just entered—that gentleman with three ladies?”

“Oh, yes; they are the Lorings. Mr. Loring is a wealthy Wall street broker. His wife is a daughter of the late Colonel Elwell, and their daughter, Miss Addie, is a charming young lady, not to mention the fact that she is the only child and the heiress to a great deal of money.”

“Introduce me, will you?” asked Everet, eagerly.

“To be sure I will; but is it the money or the beauty that attracts you most?” queried the lady, roguishly.

“I will tell you later,” retorted the young man, in the same vein; “but you did not say who that young lady is who accompanies them,” he concluded, as if his attention had but just been drawn toward her.

“No, I do not know myself; she is a stranger, but a very lovely one, is she not? Really, I do not believe there is another lady in the room so beautiful. Come, I have a curiosity to know who she is myself, and we will beg Mrs. Loring for an introduction.”

Thus Everet Mapleson managed to secure a formal introduction to the Lorings and Gladys through one of the leaders of New York society.

He knew that there could be no exceptions taken to any one whom Mrs. Vanderwater vouched for, and therefore the young girl would have no excuse for avoiding him on the score of not having been properly presented to him.

But she received him very graciously, even referring in a laughing way to their previous meeting earlier in the day, thus showing him she would not have been the least bit prudish about recognizing him, even without Mrs. Vanderwater’s reassuring presence.

He soon after searched out his friend Al, whom he presented to Miss Loring, and then left him to be entertained by her while he devoted himself exclusively to Gladys.

They danced together several times, and he managed to secure her company during supper, while afterward they had a social chat in Mrs. Brevort’s charming little picture-gallery, where there were several works of rare value.

But the only picture which Everet Mapleson seemed to consider worthy of his regard was an exquisite face, framed in lustrous brown hair, with the bluest eyes that he had ever seen, and whose every expression only served to wind the silken chain of his bondage, the chain of love, more closely about him.

Gladys, on her part, was strangely moved by the young man’s presence.

He was Geoffrey and yet he was not.

Several times she almost forgot herself and was on the point of addressing him in the old familiar way which she had always adopted toward her father’s protege, and only restrained herself in season to prevent herself from appearing bold and forward.

Everet Mapleson found her eyes fixed upon him with great earnestness several times, and he knew that she was measuring him by her estimate of Geoffrey Huntress.

It nettled him exceedingly, for he was only too conscious of his own inferiority.

“Well, Miss Huntress, are you, like many others, trying to solve within yourself the mystery of my resemblance to your cousin, that you observe me so closely,” he asked, with an amused smile, upon finding her gaze riveted upon his face instead of the picture before which they were standing.

Gladys blushed slightly.

“I shall have to plead guilty, Mr. Mapleson,” she confessed. “I trust you will excuse me if I have appeared rude, but, really, to me it seems the strangest thing imaginable.”

“It is, indeed,” he said, and added to himself: “and dusedly uncomfortable to me, too.”

“I wonder if you are not in some way related,” Gladys said, musingly, and more to herself than to him.

Everet Mapleson’s face darkened.

“I do not think so,” he answered, curtly. “He is a Northerner—I was born at the South. My father is a Southern gentleman, and has always resided near Richmond, Virginia, excepting during the war, when he was in the field or camp most of the time, and a year or two that he spent traveling in Europe.”

Gladys was conscious of a slight feeling of resentment toward her companion during this speech. The emphasis which he had, perhaps unconsciously, expended upon his personal pronouns, and the fact of his father being a “Southern gentleman,” implied a sense of superiority which grated harshly upon her ear.

“Is your mother also a native of the South?” she asked.

“Oh, yes; and my mother is a most magnificent woman, too, Miss Huntress,” the young man returned, with a kindling face.

Gladys’ heart softened a trifle toward him at this. If he loved his mother like that there must be some good in him, she thought.

“Have you brothers and sisters?” she inquired.

“No, I am the only child. I was born within a year after my parents’ marriage, and there have been no other children.”

“Do you resemble your father or mother?”

“My father. My mother has often told me that I am very like what he was at my age; but there is a portrait of my grandfather Mapleson at home, which, but for the ancient style of dress, you would believe had been taken for me; the resemblance is every bit as striking as that between Huntress and me.”

“Has your father no brothers or sisters?” Gladys asked.

Everet Mapleson looked surprised.

He knew that she was trying to account in some way for Geoffrey Huntress’ likeness to himself; but, surely, he thought, she must know all about her cousin’s parentage and their connections, and it was a little singular that she should be so persistent in her inquiries regarding the Mapleson genealogy.

“No,” he replied; “my father was an only son. He had a sister, but she died while very young. The only other connections that I know anything about were an uncle who made my father his heir, and a distant cousin—a very eccentric sort of person. Both, however, are long since dead, and both died single. The Mapleson family was never a numerous one, and it is now almost extinct. I see, Miss Huntress,” he added, with a slight smile in which Gladys thought she detected something of scorn, “that you are trying to account for this resemblance upon natural principles; but it is simply impossible that we are in any way connected. The fact can only be attributable to a strange freak of nature.”

“Possibly,” Gladys returned, thoughtfully, and yet she was impressed that there was more in it than Mr. Mapleson appeared willing to allow.

She did not feel well enough acquainted with him to speak of the mystery surrounding Geoffrey’s parentage and his early life. It is doubtful if she would have told him, under any circumstances, because of Geoffrey’s sensitiveness upon the subject, still she was strangely impressed by their resemblance.

The evening was one of keen enjoyment to Everet Mapleson, and when at length Gladys withdrew with her friends, he accompanied her to the carriage and assisted her to enter.

“I have rarely enjoyed a pleasanter evening, Miss Huntress, and I hope we shall meet again before I leave the city,” he said, as he handed her the extra wrap which hung over his arm and stood a moment beside the carriage door.

“Then come and call upon us, Mr. Mapleson; the young ladies will be together for a few days longer,” said Mrs. Loring, who had overheard this remark; and having learned from some source that he belonged to one of the F. F. V’s, she was anxious to cultivate his acquaintance for Addie’s sake.