t, when I take you away from here, into
the world, as my wife--my wife--the thought sends my blood coursing
through my veins--you will create so great a sensation that I shall be
half wild with pride; I shall want to go about calling aloud: 'She is
my wife; my very own! You may admire--worship her, but she is
mine--belongs to me--to unworthy Stafford Orme!'"

"Yes?" she murmured, her voice thrilling. "You will be proud of me? Of
me, the poor little country girl who rode about the dales in a shabby
habit and an old hat? Stafford, Jessie was telling me that there is a
very beautiful girl staying at the Villa at Brae Wood--one of the
visitors. Jessie said she was lovely, and that all the men-servants,
and the maids, too, were talking about her. She must be more beautiful
than I am."

"Which of the women do you mean?" he said, indifferently, with the
supreme indifference which the man who is madly in love feels for every
other woman than the one of his heart.

"She is a fair girl, with blue eyes and the most wonderful hair;
'chestnut-red with gold in it,' as Jessie described it to me. And she
says that this girl wears the most beautiful diamonds--I am still
quoting Jessie--and other precious stones, and that she is very 'high
and mighty,' and more haughty than any of the other ladies. Who is it?"

"I think she must mean Miss Falconer--Miss Maude Falconer," said
Stafford, as indifferently as before, as he smoothed one of the silken
tresses on her brow, and kissed it as it lay on his finger. "It is just
the way a slave would describe her."

"And is she very beautiful?" asked Ida.

"Yes, I suppose she is," he said.

"You suppose!" she echoed, arching her brows, but with a frank smile
about her lips, the smile of contentment at his indifference. "Don't
you know?"

"Well, yes, she is," he admitted. "I've scarcely noticed her. Oh, but
yes, she is; and she sings very well. Yes, I can understand her making
a sensation in the servants' hall--she makes one in the drawing-room.
But she's not my style of beauty. See here, dearest: it doesn't sound
nice, but though I've spent some hours with Miss Falconer and listened
to her singing, I have only just noticed that she is good-looking, and
that she has a wonderful voice: they say up at the Villa that there's
nothing like it on the stage--excepting Patti's and Melba's; but all
the time she has been there I have had another face, another voice, in
my mind. Ever since I saw you, do