rs make its excellence more obvious to me than to you.'

The ice once broken on this aspect of the question, the subject seemed
further to engross her, and she spoke on as if daringly inclined to
venture where she had never anticipated going, deriving pleasure from
the very strangeness of her temerity: 'You mean that in the fitness of
things I ought to become a De Stancy to strengthen my social position?'

'And that I ought to strengthen mine by alliance with the heiress of a
name so dear to engineering science as Power.'

'Well, we are talking with unexpected frankness.'

'But you are not seriously displeased with me for saying what, after
all, one can't help feeling and thinking?'

'No. Only be so good as to leave off going further for the present.
Indeed, of the two, I would rather have the other sort of address. I
mean,' she hastily added, 'that what you urge as the result of a real
affection, however unsuitable, I have some remote satisfaction in
listening to--not the least from any reciprocal love on my side, but
from a woman's gratification at being the object of anybody's devotion;
for that feeling towards her is always regarded as a merit in a woman's
eye, and taken as a kindness by her, even when it is at the expense of
her convenience.'

She had said, voluntarily or involuntarily, better things than he
expected, and perhaps too much in her own opinion, for she hardly gave
him an opportunity of replying.

They passed St. Goar and Boppard, and when steering round the sharp
bend of the river just beyond the latter place De Stancy met her again,
exclaiming, 'You left me very suddenly.'

'You must make allowances, please,' she said; 'I have always stood in
need of them.'

'Then you shall always have them.'

'I don't doubt it,' she said quickly; but Paula was not to be caught
again, and kept close to the side of her aunt while they glided past
Brauback and Oberlahnstein. Approaching Coblenz her aunt said, 'Paula,
let me suggest that you be not so much alone with Captain De Stancy.'

'And why?' said Paula quietly.

'You'll have plenty of offers if you want them, without taking trouble,'
said the direct Mrs. Goodman. 'Your existence is hardly known to the
world yet, and Captain De Stancy is too near middle-age for a girl like
you.' Paula did not reply to either of these remarks, being seemingly so
interested in Ehrenbreitstein's heights as not to hear them.

IX.

It was midnight at Coblenz, and t