t is to see you again! though you don't look
quite as bright as you did at Sandbourne. Is this your carriage? I see
you have not started a turn-out of your own yet."

"And never shall, probably."

"Not, at all events, till you have appointed your 'master of the horse.'
Good-by till to-morrow night."

He handed her carefully into the brougham, and stood looking after it as
she drove away.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A WANDERER RETURNS.

It was quite an event in Katherine's quiet life to go to a party. She
had never been at one in London, and anticipated it with interest. Both
in Florence and Paris she had mixed in society and greatly enjoyed it.
Now she felt a little curious as to the impression she might make and
receive. Her nature was essentially vigorous and healthy, and threw off
morbid feelings as certain chemicals repel others inimical to them. She
would have enjoyed life intensely but for the perpetually recurring
sense of irritation against herself for having forfeited her own
self-respect by her hasty action. It would have been somewhat
humiliating to have taken charity from the hands of Errington, but this
was as nothing to the crushing abasement of knowing that she had cheated
him. Still, no condition of mind is constant--except with
monomaniacs--and Katherine was often carried away from herself and her
troubles.

She was glad, on the whole, that De Burgh was to be at Lady Barrington's
reception.

She was too genial, too responsive, not to find admiration very
acceptable. Nor could she believe that a man like De Burgh, hard,
daring, careless, could suffer much or long through his affections. It
flattered her woman's vanity, too, that with her he dropped his cynical,
mocking tone, and spoke with straightforward earnestness. He might have
ended by interesting and flattering her till she loved him--for he had a
certain amount of attraction--if her carefully resisted feeling for
Errington had not created an antidote to the poison he might have
introduced into her life.

Altogether she dressed with something of anticipated pleasure, and was
not displeased with the result of her toilette.

Her dress was as deeply mourning as it was good taste to wear at an
evening party. A few folds of gauzy white lisse softened the edge of her
thick black silk corsage, a jet necklet and comb set off her snowy,
velvety throat and bright golden brown hair.

"I had no idea you would turn out so effectively!" exclaimed Mrs