evel
with his head. "Will that do?"

"Yes! Oh but I can't stay here."

"Why can't you?"

"Why can't I?"

He should have known then--it was thundered at a closed door in him,
that he played with fire. But the door being closed, he thought himself
internally secure.

Their eyes met. He put her down instantly.

Sir Julius, charming as he was, lost his vogue. Seeing that, the wily
woman resumed her shell. The memory, of Sir Julius breathing about her
still, doubled the feminine attraction.

"I ought to have been an actress," she said.

Richard told her he found all natural women had a similar wish.

"Yes! Ah! then! if I had been!" sighed Mrs. Mount, gazing on the pattern
of the carpet.

He took her hand, and pressed it.

"You are not happy as you are?"

"No."

"May I speak to you?"

"Yes."

Her nearest eye, setting a dimple of her cheek in motion, slid to
the corner toward her ear, as she sat with her head sideways to him,
listening. When he had gone, she said to herself: "Old hypocrites talk
in that way; but I never heard of a young man doing it, and not making
love at the same time."

Their next meeting displayed her quieter: subdued as one who had been
set thinking. He lauded her fair looks.

"Don't make me thrice ashamed," she petitioned.

But it was not only that mood with her. Dauntless defiance, that
splendidly befitted her gallant outline and gave a wildness to her
bright bold eyes, when she would call out: "Happy? who dares say I'm not
happy? D'you think if the world whips me I'll wince? D'you think I care
for what they say or do? Let them kill me! they shall never get one cry
out of me!" and flashing on the young man as if he were the congregated
enemy, add: "There! now you know me!"--that was a mood that well became
her, and helped the work. She ought to have been an actress.

"This must not go on," said Lady Blandish and Mrs. Doria in unison. A
common object brought them together. They confined their talk to it,
and did not disagree. Mrs. Doria engaged to go down to the baronet.
Both ladies knew it was a dangerous, likely to turn out a disastrous,
expedition. They agreed to it because it was something to do, and doing
anything is better than doing nothing. "Do it," said the wise youth,
when they made him a third, "do it, if you want him to be a hermit for
life. You will bring back nothing but his dead body, ladies--a Hellenic,
rather than a Roman, triumph. He will listen to you--he wil