ective enough to know that his morals
would have taken no such virtuous alarm had he been the chief male
player instead of Captain De Stancy.

He passed under the castle-arch and entered. There seemed a little turn
in the tide of affairs when it was announced to him that Miss Power
expected him, and was alone.

The well-known ante-chambers through which he walked, filled with
twilight, draughts, and thin echoes that seemed to reverberate from two
hundred years ago, did not delay his eye as they had done when he had
been ignorant that his destiny lay beyond; and he followed on through
all this ancientness to where the modern Paula sat to receive him.

He forgot everything in the pleasure of being alone in a room with her.
She met his eye with that in her own which cheered him. It was a light
expressing that something was understood between them. She said quietly
in two or three words that she had expected him in the forenoon.

Somerset explained that he had come only that morning from London.

After a little more talk, in which she said that her aunt would join
them in a few minutes, and Miss De Stancy was still indisposed at her
father's house, she rang for tea and sat down beside a little table.

'Shall we proceed to business at once?' she asked him.

'I suppose so.'

'First then, when will the working drawings be ready, which I think you
said must be made out before the work could begin?'

While Somerset informed her on this and other matters, Mrs. Goodman
entered and joined in the discussion, after which they found it would be
necessary to adjourn to the room where the plans were hanging. On their
walk thither Paula asked if he stayed late at the ball.

'I left soon after you.'

'That was very early, seeing how late you arrived.'

'Yes.... I did not dance.'

'What did you do then?'

'I moped, and walked to the door; and saw an announcement.'

'I know--the play that is to be performed.'

'In which you are to be the Princess.'

'That's not settled,--I have not agreed yet. I shall not play the
Princess of France unless Mr. Mild plays the King of Navarre.'

This sounded rather well. The Princess was the lady beloved by the
King; and Mr. Mild, the young lieutenant of artillery, was a diffident,
inexperienced, rather plain-looking fellow, whose sole interest in
theatricals lay in the consideration of his costume and the sound of
his own voice in the ears of the audience. With such an unobjectionable
p