day as it passed.

After a while, however, she began to feel that there was a certain
flatness in the sort of pleasure which consisted so largely in being
an object of admiration, for she had not been able herself to feel
much enthusiasm for the people whom she met. She did not make friends
easily, perhaps because she did not greatly care to have friends. Her
mother's delicate health had left her little time for other
companionships, even if she had desired them, and since the loss of
her mother her heart had seemed to close up, and her capacity for
caring for people, never very great, was lessening every day.

Several times during her travels she had heard Horace spoken of.
On these occasions she had not betrayed the fact that she had
any knowledge of him, and so the talk about him had been quite
unrestrained. She had heard it said by one man that "he was turning
out a very earnest fellow"; by another that "his pamphlets were
making quite a stir"; and, again, that he "might do something worth
while in diplomacy if he'd let philanthropy alone." Another man had
said that "all he needed was to marry money, and he'd have a great
career before him."

When Bettina returned from her travels these few remarks, overheard
at dinner-tables or in public places, seemed in some unaccountable
way to be the most important things she had secured out of her late
experiences. Certainly they were the most insistently recurring, and
the idea was forced upon her that the way in which men spoke of
Horace Spotswood was a strong contrast to the tone of the letter from
Lord Hurdly's friend.

All this was a source of distress to her. She would have preferred to
believe the letter, for such a belief would have rid her of the sting
of self-reproach; but, try as she might, she could not wholly get her
consent to it.

On her way back to England she stopped in Paris to choose her
costumes for the coming season. It was a pleasure to her to try on
these beautiful things, which she bought without any thought of the
cost of them; but it was a pleasure which she had become accustomed
to, and so its keenness was gone. Besides this, she had nothing to
look forward to except the London season, and custom had also
detracted from the zest of that. She was in the attitude of always
looking beyond. Surely, with such a position and such a fortune as
she had attained to, there must be something to satisfy the vague
longing within her which she called desir