a
novel sensation rather like pleasure. She wakened up at sight of him,
when he called, in a way that was attractive even to an unimaginative
man. Her eyes seemed to warm, and she often looked flushed and softly
appealing. He began to note vaguely that her dresses were better, and
oftener changed, than they had been at Mallowe. A more observant man
might have been touched by the suggestion that she was unfolding petal
by petal like a flower, and that each carefully chosen costume was a new
petal. He did not in the least suspect the reverent eagerness of her
care of herself as an object hoping to render itself worthy of his
qualities and tastes.

His qualities and tastes were of no exalted importance in themselves,
but they seemed so to Emily. It is that which by one chance or another
so commends itself to a creature as to incite it to the emotion called
love, which is really of importance, and which, not speaking in figures,
holds the power of life and death. Personality sometimes achieves this,
circumstances always aid it; but in all cases the result is the same and
sways the world it exists in--during its existence. Emily Fox-Seton had
fallen deeply and touchingly in love with this particular prosaic,
well-behaved nobleman, and her whole feminine being was absorbed in her
adoration of him. Her tender fancy described him by adjectives such as
no other human being would have assented to. She felt that he had
condescended to her with a generosity which justified worship. This was
not true, but it was true for her. As a consequence of this she thought
out and purchased her wardrobe with a solemnity of purpose such as might
well have been part of a religious ceremonial. When she consulted
fashion plates and Lady Maria, or when she ordered a gown at her
ladyship's dressmaker's, she had always before her mind, not herself,
but the Marchioness of Walderhurst--a Marchioness of Walderhurst whom
the Marquis would approve of and be pleased with. She did not expect
from him what Sir Bruce Norman gave to Lady Agatha.

Agatha and her lover were of a different world. She saw them
occasionally, not often, because the simple selfishness of young love so
absorbed them that they could scarcely realise the existence of other
persons than themselves. They were to be married, and to depart for
fairyland as soon as possible. Both were fond of travel, and when they
took ship together their intention was to girdle the world at leisure,
if th