onced in their country quarters,
and Jean was beginning to suffer from the effects of reaction. Her
impressionable nature was capable of generous impulses, which found vent
in such actions of self-abnegation as the present flight from town, but
long-continued effort was too heavy a trial. Once settled down in the
quiet house by the sea, and past the excitement of the first arrival,
she began to droop and to fret, and to demand of herself and every one
with whom she came in contact why she had been so foolish as to abandon
her last weeks in town.

"To-night is the Listers' ball. I was going to wear the new white. At
this very moment I should have been preening before the glass. I feel a
horrid conviction that it would have suited me to distraction, that I
should have had the night of my life. I can't think what you were
dreaming about, Vanna, to let me rush off in that undignified way. I'm
impulsive; but a word from you would have kept me straight. And you
never spoke it. I don't think I can ever forgive you. If you hadn't
any consideration for me, you might have thought of Edith. For _her_
sake I should have stayed in town and been as nice as possible to Robert
Gloucester. If a man can't run the gauntlet of other women, he would
make a poor sort of husband. When I fall in love, I shall make a point
of introducing the man to the most charming women of my acquaintance,
and if he shows any sign of being attracted by a special one, I'll throw
them together. I will! You see if I don't! If he didn't like me
better than them all put together, I should be glad, thankful, delighted
to let him go. Any girl would, who had a spirit. I feel that I have
behaved very meanly and unkindly to poor dear Edith. Why don't you
speak? What's the good of sitting there like a mummy? Can't you hear?"

"Perfectly, thank you. I am listening with great interest and
attention. Being of a generous nature, I refrain from repeating the
remarks which you made when I _did_ venture to expostulate, but if you
will cast back your thoughts--"

"Oh, well," interrupted Jean naughtily, "I shall just flirt with Piers.
I deserve some distraction after being such a monument of virtue, and
I'll have it, or know the reason why. I wrote to tell him we were here,
so he'll come over this afternoon, and we'll go for a walk by the sad
sea waves. You might twist your ankle on the pebbles, a little innocent
twist, you know, just enough to make it