ourt, and thoroughly enjoying the
admiration.

"If we have had to live by our looks for all these centuries, surely the
instinct that Professor Theobald thinks himself so penetrating to have
discovered in clever women, is accounted for simply enough by heredity,"
Hadria said to herself, resentfully.

Professor Theobald was bending over Miss Du Prel with an air of
devotion. Hadria wished that she would not take his compliments so
smilingly. Valeria would not be proof against his flattery. She kindled
with a child's frankness at praise. It stung Hadria to think of her
friend being carelessly classed by the Professor among women whose
weakness he understood and could play upon. He would imagine that he had
discovered the mystery of the sun, because he had observed a spot upon
it, not understanding the nature of the very spot. Granted that a little
salve to one's battered and scarified self-love was soft and grateful,
what did that prove of the woman who welcomed it, beyond a human
craving to keep the inner picture of herself as bright and fine as might
be? The man who, out of contempt or irreverence, set a bait for the
universal appetite proved himself, rather than his intended victim, of
meagre quality. Valeria complimented him generously by supposing him
sincere.

Occasional bursts of laughter came from her court. Professor Theobald
looked furtively round, as if seeking some one, or watching the effect
of his conduct on Mrs. Temperley.

Could he be trying to make her jealous of Valeria?

Hadria gave a sudden little laugh while Lord Engleton--a shy, rather
taciturn man--was shewing her his wife's last picture. Hadria had to
explain the apparent discourtesy as best she could.

The picture was of English meadows at sunset.

"They are the meadows you see from your windows," said Lord Engleton.
"That village is Masham, with the spire shewing through the trees. I
daresay you know the view pretty well."

"I doubt," she answered, with the instinct of extravagance that annoyed
Hubert, "I doubt if I know anything else."

Lord Engleton brought a portfolio full of sketches for her to see.

"Lady Engleton has been busy."

As Hadria laid down the last sketch, her eyes wandered round the
softly-lighted, dimly beautiful room, and suddenly she was seized with a
swift, reasonless, overpowering sense of happiness that she felt to be
atmospheric and parenthetical in character, but all the more keen for
that reason, while it la