t were strolling
about the ballroom, and over the lights and flowers and the band
preparing to begin again, and then looked up into Edmund's face. It was
a slow, luxurious movement, fitted to the rather unusually developed
face and expression. Most debutantes are crude in their enjoyment, but
Molly was beginning London at twenty-one, not at eighteen, and
circumstances made her more mature than her actual experience of society
warranted. Yet it seemed to Edmund that the untamed element in her was
the more striking from the contrast. Molly accepted social delights and
social conventions as a young and gentle tigress might enjoy the soft
turf of an English lawn.

The defiance in her tone when she alluded to Groombridge faded now.

"I have six balls in the next four nights, and one opera, and we are
going to Ascot, then back to London, then to Cowes, and, after that, I
am going to the Italian Lakes and to Switzerland, and wherever I like."

"Is Mrs. Delaport Green so very unselfish?"

"Oh, no; I am only going to stay with Adela till the end of the season,
and then I am going abroad with two girls who are quite delightful, and
in October the flat and the governess are to come into existence."

"Yes; everything--everything perfect," murmured Grosse, looking at her
with an expression that included her own appearance in the "everything
perfect." Then, dropping his restless eyeglass, he went on.

"And you are never bored?"

"Never for one single moment."

"Amazing! and what is more amazing is that possibly you never will be
bored."

"Am I to die young then?" asked Molly.

"Not necessarily, but I believe you will enjoy too keenly, and probably
suffer too keenly to be bored."

"Did you ever enjoy very keenly?" asked Molly, with timid interest.

"Didn't I!" cried Grosse, with unusual animation; "until the last seven
or eight years I enjoyed myself hugely, but----"

"Why did it stop?" asked Molly, her large eyes straining with eagerness.

"You look like a child who must know the end of the story at once. Do
you always get so eager when you are told a story? Mine is dreadfully
dull. While I had plenty of work to do, and something to look forward
to, I was amused, but then----"

"Then what?"

"Well, then I became rich, and I've been dawdling about ever since. At
first I enjoyed it, but now I'm bored to extinction."

"I can understand," said Molly, "when anything becomes quite easy it
doesn't seem worth while to do