closely.

"Why, you were at school in Delafield until you were no chicken."

Abel bows smilingly.

"You must have known her."

"Yes, a little."

"Well, didn't you know what a stunning heiress she was, and so handsome!
How'd you, of all men in the world, let her slip through your fingers?"

A curious silence follows this effusion. Corlaer Van Boozenberg is
slightly flown with wine. Hal Battlebury, who sits near him, looks
troubled. Herbert Octoyne and Mellish Whitloe exchange meaning glances.
The young ladies--Mrs. Plumer is the only matron, except Mrs. Dagon, who
sits below--smile pleasantly. Sligo Moultrie eats grapes. Grace Plumer
waits to hear what Abel says, or to observe what he does. Mrs. Dagon
regards the whole affair with an approving smile, nodding almost
imperceptibly a kind of Freemason's sign to Mrs. Plumer, who thinks that
the worthy young Van Boozenberg has probably taken too much wine.

Abel Newt quietly turns to Grace Plumer, saying,

"Poor Corlaer! There are disadvantages in being the son of a very rich
man; one is so strongly inclined to measure every thing by money.. As if
money were all!"

He looks her straight in the eyes as he says it. Perhaps it is some
effort he is making which throws into his look that cold, hard blackness
which is not beautiful. Perhaps it is some kind of exasperation arising
from what he has heard Moultrie say privately and Van Boozenberg
publicly, as it were, that pushes him further than he means to go. There
is a dangerous look of craft; an air of sarcastic cunning in his eyes and
on his face. He turns the current of talk with his neighbors, without any
other indication of disturbance than the unpleasant look. Van Boozenberg
is silent again. The gentle, rippling murmur of talk fills the room, and
at a moment when Moultrie is speaking with his neighbor, Abel says,
looking at the engraving of the Madonna,

"Miss Grace, I feel like those cherubs."

"Why so, Mr. Newt?"

"Because I am perfectly happy."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, Miss Grace, and for the same reason that I entirely love and
admire."

Her heart beats violently. Sligo Moultrie turns and sees her face. He
divines every thing in a moment, for he loves Grace Plumer.

"Yes, Miss Grace," he says, in a quick, thick tone, as if he were
continuing a narration--"yes, she became Princess of Este; but the
fiery eyes burned her, and the sweet tongue stung her forever and ever."

Mrs. Plumer and Mrs. Dagon are risin