th a calm questioning
glance that might well have daunted a better man. It only nerves him
however to even bolder words.

"The journey your thoughts have taken--has it been a pleasant one?" he
asks, smiling.

"I have come here for rest, not for conversation." There is undisguised
dislike in her tones. Still he is untouched by her scorn. He even grows
more defiant, as though determined to let her see that even her avowed
hatred can not subdue him.

"If you only knew," he goes on, with slow meaning, regarding her as he
speaks with critical admiration, "how surpassingly beautiful you look
to-night, you would perhaps understand in a degree the power you possess
over your fellow-creatures. In that altitude, with that slight touch of
scorn upon your lips, you seem a meet partner for a monarch."

She laughs a low contemptuous laugh, that even makes his blood run hotly
in his veins.

"And yet you have the boldness to offer yourself as an aspirant to my
favor?" she says. "In truth, sir, you value yourself highly!"

"Love will find the way!" he quotes quickly, though plainly disconcerted
by her merriment. "And in time I trust I shall have my reward."

"In time, I trust you will," she returns, in a tone impossible to
misconstrue.

At this point he deems it wise to change the subject; and, as he halts
rather lamely in his conversation, at a loss to find some topic that may
interest her or advance his cause, Sir Adrian and Dora pass by the door
of the conservatory.

Sir Adrian is smiling gayly at some little speech of Dora's, and Dora is
looking up at him with a bright expression in her blue eyes that tells
of the happiness she feels.

"Ah, I can not help thinking Adrian is doing very wisely," observes
Arthur Dynecourt, some evil genius at his elbow urging him to lie.

"Doing--what?" asks his companion, roused suddenly into full life and
interest.

"You pretend ignorance, no doubt"--smiling. "But one can see. Adrian's
marriage with Mrs. Talbot has been talked about for some time amongst
his intimates."

A clasp like ice seems to seize upon Miss Delmaine's heart as these
words drop from his lips. She restrains her emotion bravely, but his
lynx-eye reads her through and through.

"They seem to be more together to-night than is even usual with them,"
goes on Arthur blandly. "Before you honored the room with your presence,
he had danced twice with her, and now again. It is very marked, his
attention to-night."

As a