ust him, for
he has carried Blanche."

Cecil threw back her head. "Oh, I would ride anything, Qui Vive himself,
if he would bear a habit. I am not like Miss Caldecott, who, catching
sight of his dear brown legs, vanished as rapidly as if she had seen
Muriel's ghost on Christmas-eve."

The Colonel smiled. "You are very unmerciful to poor Miss Caldecott.
What has she done to offend you?"

"Offend me! Nothing in the world. Though I heard her lament with Miss
Screechington in the music-room, that I was 'so fast,' and 'such slang
style;' I consider that rather a compliment, for I never knew any lady
pull to pieces my bonnet, or my bouquet, or my hat, unless it was a
prettier one than their own. That sounds a vain speech, but I don't mean
it so."

The Colonel looked down into her velvet eyes; she was most dangerous to
him in this mood. "No," he said, briefly, "no one would accuse you of
vanity, though they might, pardon me, of love of admiration."

Cecil laughed merrily. "Yes, perhaps so; it is pleasant, you know. Yet
sometimes I am tired of it all, and I want----"

"A more difficult conquest? To find a diamond, merely, like Cleopatra,
to show your estimate of its value by throwing it away."

A flush of vexation came into her cheeks. "Do you think me utterly
heartless?" she said impetuously. "No. I mean that I often tire of the
fulsome compliments, the flattery, the attention, the whirl of society!
I do like admiration. I tell you candidly what every other woman
acknowledges to herself but denies to the world; but often it is nothing
to me--mere Dead Sea fruit. I care nothing for the voices that whisper
it; the eyes that express it wake no response in mine, and I would give
it all for one word of true interest, one glance of real----"

Vivian looked down on her steadily with his searching eagle eyes, out of
which, when he chose, nothing could be read. "If I dare believe you----"
he said, half aloud.

Gentle as his tone was, the mere doubt stung Cecil to the quick.
Something of the wild, desperate feeling of the day previous rose in her
heart. The same feeling that makes men brave heaven and hell to win
their desires worked up in her. If she had been one of us, just at that
moment, she would have flinched at nothing; being a young lady, her
hands were tied. She could only go to Cos's stalls with him (Cos knows
as much about horseflesh as I do about the profound female mystery they
call "shopping"), and flirt with