spirit over her own. She felt as if she were hypnotized. She wondered
if it could be so, and if she would presently come to herself and
find that it was all a delusion and she had never seen Lord Hurdly or
his house, but was on her way to St. Petersburg to join Horace and
settle down to a limited and economical way of living.

At this thought her heart fell. She had laid her hand upon this
dazzling prize of worldly wealth and position. Could she let it go?

During luncheon no reference was made to the subject of their late
conversation. The servants remained in the room, and Lord Hurdly
talked of public and quite impersonal affairs. In so doing he showed
a trenchant insight, a broad knowledge of the world, an undeniably
powerful mentality, and a decided skill in the art of pleasing. If
the tone of his talk was cynical, it found, for that very reason, all
the clearer echo in Bettina's heart. A certain tendency to cynicism
was inborn in her, and the bitterness she felt at the loss of her
mother had accentuated this. What was the use of loving, she asked
herself, when love must end like this? In her heart she passionately
hoped that she might never love again. And she had also a shrinking
from being loved in any ardent manner that might make demands upon
her which she could not respond to.

When the time came for Bettina to leave, she found that the cab in
which she had come had been sent away, and, in its place, Lord
Hurdly's brougham waited for her. He escorted her himself to the
carriage door, and when the great footman who held it open touched
his hat in silence as he took her orders, and then mounted beside his
twin brother on the box and she was bowled away, on padded cushions
from which emanated a delicious odor of fine leather, Bettina felt
that, for the first time in her life, she was in her proper element.

The events of the morning seemed to her like some agitating dream.
She wondered how long it had been since she left her hotel, and tried
to guess what time it was. As she did so, her eyes fell on the small
clock, neatly encased in the leather upholstering of the carriage
just in front of her. The fitness of this object and of everything
about her gave her a delicious sense of adaptation to her environment
which she had never had before.

When she got out at her hotel, the footman, with the same salute of
ineffable respect, said that his lordship had told him to ask if she
had any further orders for the c