o; but as he spoke and compared them his mind was fixed on
something else than the mere judgment. He wondered whether the elusive
one were indeed in the frame of this girl.

He looked up at her. To his surprise, her mind, too, was on other
things bent than on the pictures. Her eyes were glancing away to distant
people, she was apparently considering the effect she was producing upon
them by this cosy tete-a-tete with Pierston, and upon one in particular,
a man of thirty, of military appearance, whom Pierston did not know.
Quite convinced now that no phantom belonging to him was contained in
the outlines of the present young lady, he could coolly survey her as he
responded. They were both doing the same thing--each was pretending to
be deeply interested in what the other was talking about, the attention
of the two alike flitting away to other corners of the room even when
the very point of their discourse was pending.

No, he had not seen Her yet. He was not going to see her, apparently,
to-night; she was scared away by the twanging political atmosphere.
But he still moved on searchingly, hardly heeding certain spectral imps
other than Aphroditean, who always haunted these places, and jeeringly
pointed out that under the white hair of this or that ribanded old
man, with a forehead grown wrinkled over treaties which had swayed the
fortunes of Europe, with a voice which had numbered sovereigns among its
respectful listeners, might be a heart that would go inside a nut-shell;
that beneath this or that white rope of pearl and pink bosom, might lie
the half-lung which had, by hook or by crook, to sustain its possessor
above-ground till the wedding-day.

At that moment he encountered his amiable host, and almost
simultaneously caught sight of the lady who had at first attracted him
and then had disappeared. Their eyes met, far off as they were from each
other. Pierston laughed inwardly: it was only in ticklish excitement as
to whether this was to prove a true trouvaille, and with no instinct
to mirth; for when under the eyes of his Jill-o'-the-Wisp he was more
inclined to palpitate like a sheep in a fair.

However, for the minute he had to converse with his host, Lord
Channelcliffe, and almost the first thing that friend said to him was:
'Who is that pretty woman in the black dress with the white fluff about
it and the pearl necklace?'

'I don't know,' said Jocelyn, with incipient jealousy: 'I was just going
to ask the sa