_a ravir_ as Cos, in his Milan armor, whispered with some
difficulty, as the steel gorget pressed his throat uncomfortably.
Vestris herself never made a more brilliant or impassioned _Countess_.
She and Syd really acquitted themselves in a style to qualify them for
London boards, and as she threw herself at his feet--

Huon--my husband--lord--canst thou forgive
The scornful maid? for the devoted wife
Had cleaved to thee, though ne'er she owned thee lord,

I thought the St. Aubyn must be as great an actress as Rachel, if some
of that fervor was not real.

Cecil played in the afterpiece, "The wonderful Woman;" the Colonel
didn't; and Cos being _De Frontignac_, Syd leaned against one of the
scenes, and looked on the whole thing with calm indifference externally,
but much disquietude and annoyance within him. He was not jealous of the
puppy; he would as soon have thought of putting himself on a par with
Blanche's little white terrier, but he'd come to set a price on Cecil's
winning smiles, and to see them given pretty equally to him, and to a
young fool, her inferior in everything save position, whom he knew in
her inmost soul she must ridicule and despise, galled his pride, and
steeled his heart against her. His experience in women made him know
that it was highly probable that Cecil was playing both at once, and
that though, as he guessed, she loved him, she would, if Cos offered
first, accept the title, and wealth, and position his cousin, equally
with himself, could give her; and such love as that was far from the
Colonel's ideal.

"By George! Vivian, that Canadian of yours is a perfect angel," said a
man in the Dragoons, who had played _Ulric_. "She's such a deuced lot
ove pluck, such eyes, such hair, such a voice! 'Pon my life, I quite
envy you. I suppose you mean to act out the play in reality, don't you?"

Vivian lying back in an arm-chair in the green-room crushed up one of
the satin playbills in his hand, and answered simply, "You do me too
much honor, Calvert. Miss St. Aubyn and I have no thought of each
other."

If any man had given Vivian the lie, he would have had him out and shot
him instanter; nevertheless, he told this one with the most unhesitating
defiance of truth. He did not see Cecil, who had just come off the
stage, standing behind him. But she heard his words, went as white as
Muriel's phantom, and brushed past us into her dressing room, whence she
emerged, when her name was called, her