.

After a moment Querida, too, lifted his head and gazed deliberately at
Neville. Then very quietly:

"Are you dining alone this evening?"

"No."

"Oh. Perhaps to-morrow evening, then--"

"I'm afraid not, Jose."

He smiled: "Not dining alone ever again?"

"Not--for the present."

"I see."

"There is nothing to see," she said calmly. But his smile seemed now so
genuine that it disarmed her; and she blushed when he said:

"Am I to wish you happiness, Valerie? Is _that_ the trouble?"

"Certainly. Please wish it for me always--as I do for you--and for
everybody."

But he continued to laugh, and the colour in her face persisted,
annoying her intensely.

"Nevertheless," he said, "I do not believe you can be hopelessly in
love."

"What ever put such an idea into that cynical head of yours?"

"Chance," he said. "But you are not irrevocably in love. You are
ignorant of what love can really mean. Only he who understands it--and
who has suffered through it--can ever teach you. And you will never be
satisfied until he does."'

"Are you _very_ wise concerning love, Jose?" she asked, laughing.

[Illustration: "'Don't do it, Valerie!'"]

"Perhaps. You will desire to be, too, some day. A good school, an
accomplished scholar."

"And the schoolmaster? Oh! Jose!"

They both were laughing now--he with apparent pleasure in her coquetry
and animation, she still a little confused and instinctively on her
guard.

Rita came strolling over, a tiny cigarette balanced between her slender
fingers:

"Stop flirting, Jose," she said; "it's too near dinner time. Valerie,
child, I'm dining with the unspeakable John again. It's a horrid habit.
Can't you prescribe for me? Jose, what are you doing this evening?"

"Penance," he said; "I'm dining with my family."

"Penance," she repeated with a singular look--"well--that's one way of
regarding the pleasure of having any family to dine with--isn't it,
Valerie?"

"Jose didn't mean it that way."

Rita blew a ring from her cigarette's glimmering end.

"Will you be at home this evening, Valerie?"

"Y-yes ... rather late."

"Too late to see me?"

"No, you dear girl. Come at eleven, anyway. And if I'm a little late
you'll forgive me, won't you?"

"No, I won't," said Rita, crossly. "You and I are business women,
anyway, and eleven is too late for week days. I'll wait until I can see
you, sometime--"

"Was it anything important, dear?"

"Not to me."

Querida rose, to