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Violet was talking to Madison and watching John Spencer out of the tail of her eye. Spencer was not an M.P. He had some government post at Dufferin Bluff, and this was his first call at Lone Poplar Villa since Miss Thayer’s arrival. He did not seem to be dazzled by her at all, and after his introduction had promptly retired to a corner with Major Hill, where they talked the whole evening about the trouble on the Indian reservation at Loon Lake.

Possibly this indifference piqued Miss Thayer. Possibly she considered it refreshing after the servile adulation of the M.P.s. At any rate, when all the latter were gathered about the piano singing a chorus with gusto, she shook Madison off and went over to the corner where Spencer, deserted by the Major, whose bass was wanted, was sitting in solitary state.

He looked up indifferently as Violet shimmered down on the divan beside him. Sergeant Robinson, who was watching them jealously from the corner beyond the palms, and would have given his eyes, or at least one of them, for such a favour, mentally vowed that Spencer was the dullest fellow he had ever put those useful members on.

“Don’t you sing, Mr. Spencer?” asked Violet by way of beginning a conversation, as she turned her splendid eyes full upon him. Robinson would have lost his head under them, but Spencer kept his heroically.

“No,” was his calmly brief reply, given without any bluntness, but with no evident intention of saying anything more.

In spite of her social experience Violet felt disconcerted.

“If he doesn’t want to talk to me I won’t try to make him,” she thought crossly. No man had ever snubbed her so before.

Spencer listened immovably to the music for a time. Then he turned to his companion with a palpable effort to be civilly sociable.

“How do you like the west, Miss Thayer?” he said.

Violet smiled–the smile most men found dangerous.

“Very much, so far as I have seen it. There is a flavour about the life here that I like, but I dare say it would soon pall. It must be horribly lonesome here most of the time, especially in winter.”

“The M.P.s are always growling that it is,” returned Spencer with a slight smile. “For my own part I never find it so.”

Violet decided that his smile was very becoming to him and that she liked the way his dark hair grew over his forehead.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you at Lone Poplar Villa before?” she said.

“No. I haven’t been here for some time. I came up tonight to see the Major about the Loon Lake trouble.”

“Otherwise you wouldn’t have come,” thought Violet. “Flattering–very!” Aloud she said, “Is it serious?”

“Oh, no. A mere squabble among the Indians. Have you ever visited the Reservation, Miss Thayer? No? Well, you should get some of your M.P. friends to take you out. It would be worth while.”

“Why don’t you ask me to go yourself?” said Violet audaciously.

Spencer smiled again. “Have I failed in politeness by not doing so? I fear you would find me an insufferably dull companion.”

So he was not going to ask her after all. Violet felt piqued. She was also conscious of a sensation very near akin to disappointment. She looked across at Madison. How trim and dapper he was!

“I hate a bandbox man,” she said to herself.

Spencer meanwhile had picked up one of Mrs. Hill’s novels from the stand beside him.

“Fools of Habit,” he said, glancing at the cover. “I see it is making quite a sensation down east. I suppose you’ve read it?”

“Yes. It is very frivolous and clever–all froth but delightful froth. Did you like it?”

Spencer balanced the novel reflectively on his slender brown hand.

“Well, yes, rather. But I don’t care for novels as a rule. I don’t understand them. The hero of this book, now–do you believe that a man in love would act as he did?”