ess charms that constitute the perfect, peerless, fascinating
woman, my own country I pre-eminently bears the palm. Broad as is her
domain, and noble her civil institutions, the crowning glory of
America dwells in her lovely and gifted women."

He had never looked handsomer than at that moment, as, slightly
bending his head in homage, his dangerously beautiful eyes rested
with an unmistakable expression upon the faultless features before
him; and watching him, a cold smile broke up the icy outline of his
companion's delicate lips:

"American beauty might question the sincerity of a champion whose
worship is offered only at foreign shrines, and the precious oblation
of whose heart is laid on distant and strange altars."

"Ah, Madame,--neither at foreign shrines nor strange altars, but ever
unwaveringly at the feet of my divine countrywomen. Is it needful
that I recross the ocean to bow before the reigning muse? Is it not
conceded that the brightest, loveliest planet in Parisian skies,
brought all her splendour from my western home?"

"How you barb with keen regret the mortifying reflection that I,
alas! cannot as an American lay claim to a moiety of your chivalric
allegiance! Ill-fated Odille Orme!"

The stinging sarcasm in the liquid voice perplexed him, and the
strange lambent light that seemed now and then to ray out of the
brilliant eyes that had never wandered from his, sent an
uncomfortable thrill over him.

"Surely the world cannot have erred in according to my own country
the honour of your nationality?"

"I was born upon a French ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."

"Ah, dearest Madame! then it is no marvel that, as you have inherited
the cestus of Aphrodite, your votaries bow as blindly, as helplessly,
as those over whom your ancient Greek mother ruled so despotically.
By divine right of birth you should reign as Odille Anadyomene."

"Madame Odille Orme has abjured the pagan aesthetics that seem to
trench rather closely upon Mr. Laurance's ethics, and shed far too
rosy an Orientalism over his mind and heart; and hopes he will not
forget her proud boast that by divine right she wears a dearer,
nobler, holier title--Odille Orme, wife and mother."

Bolder libertinism than found shelter in Mr. Laurance's perverted
nature, would have cowered before the pure face that now leaned far
forward, with dilated, scornful eyes which seemed to run like
electric rays up and down the secret chambers of his h