dear fellow, you might have gone
higher, sans doute, but on my honor I don't think you could have done
better."

It was the universal opinion. Beatrice was not the belle of the Bad,
because there were dozens of beautiful women, and beautiful she was not;
but she was more admired than any of them, and had Earlscourt wanted
voices to justify his choice he would have had them, but he didn't; he
was entirely independent of the opinions of others, and had he chosen to
set his coronet on the brows of a peasant girl, would have cared little
what any one thought or said. We all of us enjoyed that six weeks. Lady
Mechlin lost to her heart's content at roulette, and was as complacent
over her losses as any old dowager could be. Beatrice Boville shone
best, as nice natures ever do, in a sunny atmosphere; and if she had any
faults of impatient temper or pride, there was nothing to call them
forth. Earlscourt, cold politician though he'd been, gave himself up
entirely to the warmer, brighter existence, which he found in his new
passion; and I, not being in love with anybody, made the pleasantest
love possible wherever I liked. We all of us found a couleur de rose
tint in the air of little Lemongenseidlitz, and I'd quite forgotten my
presentiment, when, one night at the Kursaal, a cloud no bigger than a
man's hand came up on the sunny horizon, and put me in mind of it.

Earlscourt came into the ball room rather late; he had been talking with
some French ministers on some international project which he was anxious
to effect, and asked Lady Mechlin where Beatrice was.

"She was with me a moment ago; she is waltzing, I dare say," said the
old lady, whose soul was hankering after the ivory ball.

"Very likely," he answered, as he looked among the dancers for her; he
was restless without her, though he would have liked none to see the
weakness, for he was a man who felt more than he told. He could not see
her, and went through the rooms till he found her, which was in a small
anteroom alone. She started as he spoke to her, and a start being a
timorous and nervous thing of which Beatrice Boville was never guilty,
he drew her to him anxiously.

"My darling, has anything annoyed you?"

She answered him with her habitual candor:

"Yes; but I cannot tell you what, just now."

"Cannot tell me! and why?"

"Because I cannot. I can give no other reason. It is nothing of import
to you, or you are sure I should not keep it from you."

"Y