letic, her graceful shape teemed with elasticity. There was a touch
of "sport" in the parasol she had laid down; and with all her blended
serenity there was a touch of "sport" in her. Experience could teach
her beauty nothing more; it wore the look of having been made love to by
many married men.

Quite suddenly the true light flashed upon me. I had been slow-sighted
indeed! So that was what she had come here for to-day! Miss Hortense
was going to pay her compliments to Miss La Heu. I believe that my sight
might still have been slow but for that miraculous sweetness upon
the face of Eliza. She was ready for the compliments! Well, I sat
expectant--and disappointment was by no means my lot.

Hortense finished her lunch. "And so this interesting place is where you
work?"

Eliza, thus addressed, assented.

"And you furnish wedding cakes also?"

Eliza was continuously and miraculously sweet. "The Exchange includes
that."

"I shall hope you will be present to taste some of yours on the day it
is mine."

"I shall accept the invitation if my friends send me one."

No blood flowed from Hortense at this, and she continued with the same
smooth deliberation.

"The list is of necessity very small; but I shall see that it includes
you."

"You are not going to postpone it any more, then?"

No blood flowed at this, either. "I doubt if John--if Mr. Mayrant--would
brook further delay, and my father seems stronger, at last. How much do
I owe you for your very good food?"

It is a pity that a larger audience could not have been there to enjoy
this skilful duet, for it held me hanging on every musical word of it.
There, at the far back end of the long room, I sat alone at my
table, pretending to be engaged over a sandwich that was no more in
existence--external, I mean--and a totally empty cup of chocolate. I
lifted the cup, and bowed over the plate, and used the paper Japanese
napkin, and generally went through the various discreet paces of eating,
quite breathless, all the while, to know which of them was coming out
ahead. There was no fairness in their positions; Hortense had Eliza in
a cage, penned in by every fact; but it doesn't do to go too near some
birds, even when they're caged, and, while these two birds had been
giving their sweet manifestations of song, Eliza had driven a peck
or two home through the bars, which, though they did not draw visible
blood, as I have said, probably taught Hortense that a Newport educ