"Why do you try to tangle me up in words?" he asked.

Mrs. Staggchase did not turn toward him, but looked before with face
entirely unchanged as she replied:--

"I am not trying to entangle you in words, but if I were it would be
all part of the play. You are undergoing your period of temptation. I
am the tempter in default of a better. In the old fashion of
temptations it wouldn't do to have the tempter old and plain. Then you
were expected to fall in love; now we deal in snares more subtle."

Maurice laughed, but somewhat unmirthfully. There was to him something
bewildering and worldly about his cousin; and he had come to feel that
he could never be at all sure where in the end the most harmless
beginning of talk might lead him.

"What then is the modern way of temptation?" he inquired.

"It shows how much faith we have in its power," she replied, as they
waited on the corner of Charles Street for a carriage to pass, "that I
don't in the least mind giving you full warning. Did you know the lady
in that carriage, by the way?"

"It was Mrs. Wilson, wasn't it?"

"Yes; Mrs. Chauncy Wilson. You have seen her at the Church of the
Nativity, I suppose. She is one phase of the temptation."

"I don't in the least understand."