h yours. There will be
moments when I shall be gnawed with envy, but perhaps, who knows? there
may be times when you may envy me in return. At any rate, you'll be
sweet to me, dear--I know that; and you must let me help you to
entertain the dull bores, and keep the charming eligibles out of my way.
I don't want to be driven away by a second Edward Verney. It's a mercy
I am only `interesting,' and not a beauty, like you."

"Yes, it is," sighed Jean, in unthinking agreement.

Vanna's lips twitched, her eyes flashed a humorous glance at her own
reflection in the glass at the opposite end of the room.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE ROSE WAITS.

The evening after her interview with the doctor, Vanna Strangeways
accompanied her friend to a ball, and had her first experience of
society under the altered mental conditions of her life. Her first
impulse had been to excuse herself and stay at home, but she was an
unusually reasoning creature for her twenty-three years, and a short
mental cross-examination was sufficient to reject the idea, "Can I go to
her and say, `Jean, I am sorry; it is impossible that I can marry any of
the men at the ball, so I would rather not go'? What nonsense, what
folly, what degradation!" She put on her prettiest frock, spent an
extra ten minutes over her hair; and even beside the radiant beauty of
Jean in her pale pink tarlatan, attracted notice as one of the most
interesting and distinguished of the dancers.

The floor was good, the music inspiriting, her programme was filled from
beginning to end. She tried bravely to enjoy the evening in her old,
unthinking fashion, and was furious with herself because she failed.
There was no use denying the fact: something had disappeared which had
been there before, the absence of which strangely transformed the
scene--an interest, a zest, a sense of mystery and uncertainty. They
had lain so far in the background that she had not realised their
presence, but they had been present all the same. Each strange man to
whom she had been introduced held within his black-coated form a
dazzling possibility; her young eyes searched his face even as his
searched hers--alert, critical, inquiring; for the moment each
represented to the other the mystery, the fascination of sex. After the
dance, as they sat talking lightly in some cool shade the inner voice in
each brain was holding a council of its own: "Who, and what are you,
inside that smiling form; what sort o