he has drawn the serpent's teeth.

"I tell you the truth," Lord Mountfalcon went on. "What object could I
have in deceiving you? I know you quite above flattery--so different from
other women!"

"Oh, pray, do not say that," interposed Lucy.

"According to my experience, then."

"But you say you have met such--such very bad women."

"I have. And now that I meet a good one, it is my misfortune."

"Your misfortune, Lord Mountfalcon?"

"Yes, and I might say more."

His lordship held impressively mute.

"How strange men are!" thought Lucy. "He had some unhappy secret."

Tom Bakewell, who had a habit of coming into the room on various
pretences during the nobleman's visits, put a stop to the revelation, if
his lordship intended to make any.

When they were alone again, Lucy said, smiling: "Do you know, I am always
ashamed to ask you to begin to read."

Mountfalcon stared. "To read?--oh! ha! yes!" he remembered his evening
duties. "Very happy, I'm sure. Let me see. Where were we?"

"The life of the Emperor Julian. But indeed I feel quite ashamed to ask
you to read, my lord. It's new to me; like a new world--hearing about
Emperors, and armies, and things that really have been on the earth we
walk upon. It fills my mind. But it must have ceased to interest you, and
I was thinking that I would not tease you any more."

"Your pleasure is mine, Mrs. Feverel. 'Pon my honour, I'd read till I was
hoarse, to hear your remarks."

"Are you laughing at me?"

"Do I look so?"

Lord Mountfalcon had fine full eyes, and by merely dropping the lids he
could appear to endow them with mental expression.

"No, you are not," said Lucy. "I must thank you for your forbearance."

The nobleman went on his honour loudly.

Now it was an object of Lucy's to have him reading; for his sake, for her
sake, and for somebody else's sake; which somebody else was probably
considered first in the matter. When he was reading to her, he seemed to
be legitimizing his presence there; and though she had no doubts or
suspicions whatever, she was easier in her heart while she had him
employed in that office. So she rose to fetch the book, laid it open on
the table at his lordship's elbow, and quietly waited to ring for candles
when he should be willing to commence.

That evening Lord Mountfalcon could not get himself up to the farce, and
he felt a pity for the strangely innocent unprotected child with anguish
hanging over her, that withheld the