elt ran through his intent audience. Mark Bower, the
millionaire, the financial genius who dominated more than one powerful
group in the city, who controlled a ring of theaters in London and the
provinces, who had declined a knighthood, and would surely be created
a peer with the next change of government,--that he should openly
declare himself a suitor for the hand of a penniless girl was a
sensation with a vengeance. His description of Millicent as an
ex-chorus girl offered another _bonne bouche_ to the crowd. She would
never again skip airily behind the footlights of the Wellington, or
any other important theater in England. So far as she was concerned,
the musical comedy candle that succeeded to the sacred lamp of West
End burlesque was snuffed out.

Millicent was actress enough not to flinch from the goad. "A charming
and proper sentiment," she cried with well simulated flippancy. "The
marriage of Mr. Mark Bower will be quite a fashionable event, provided
always that he secures the assent of the American gentleman who is
paying his future wife's expenses during her present holiday."

Now, so curiously constituted is human nature, or the shallow
worldliness that passes current for it among the homeless gadabouts
who pose as British society on the Continent, that already the current
of opinion in the hotel was setting steadily in Helen's favor. The
remarkable change dated from the moment of Bower's public announcement
of his matrimonial plans. Many of those present were regretting a lost
opportunity. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence--and the
worn phrase took a new vitality when applied to some among the
company--that any kindness shown to Helen during the preceding
fortnight would be repaid a hundredfold when she became Mrs. Mark
Bower. Again, not even the bitterest of her critics could allege that
she was flirting with the quiet mannered American who had just carried
her off like a new Paris. She had lived in the same hotel for a whole
week without speaking a word to him. If anything, she had shown favor
only to Bower, and that in a way so decorous and discreet that
more than one woman there was amazed by her careless handling of a
promising situation. Just give one of them the chance of securing such
a prize fish as this stalwart millionaire! Well, at least he should
not miss the hook for lack of a bait.

Oddly enough, the Rev. Philip Hare gave voice to a general sentiment
when he interfered in the due