art in somebody else's pet phrases. Lord
Lumley had met that sort of young lady, and had shunned her. Margharita
had simply acquired from a hurried visit to Italy, when she was quite
young, a dim but vast appreciation of the soul of the great masters. She
could not have defined art, nor could she have expressed in a few
nicely-rounded sentences her opinion of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece,
or of the genius of Pico della Mirandola. But she felt that a great
world lay beyond a larger knowledge and understanding of these things,
and some day she hoped, after time, and thought, and study, to enter it.

And Lord Lumley, reading her thoughts with a keen and intuitive
sympathy, talked to her that night at dinner and afterward in a corner
of the perfumed rose-lit drawing room, as no man had ever talked to her
before--talked to her so earnestly, and with so much effect, that Lady
St. Maurice rose from her writing table at the other end of the room,
watched them with pale and troubled face, and more than once made some
faint effort to disturb them. He showed her the systems and manner of
thought by which the dimly-felt, wondering admiration of the uncultured,
yet sensitive, mind can develop into the large and soul-felt
appreciation of the artist. It was the keys of her promised land which
he held out to her with winning speech and a kindliness to which she was
unaccustomed. He was young himself, but he had all the advantages of
correct training, of travel, and of delicate artistic sensibilities. He
had taught himself much, and fresh from the task of learning, he had all
the best enthusiasm of the teacher. He had told himself that he, too,
like the Athenians, worshiped beauty, but never in his life had he seen
anything so beautiful as Margharita's face as she listened to him.
Spiritual life seemed to have been poured into a piece of beautiful
imagery. Her lips were parted and her dark eyes were softened. It was
the face of a St. Cecilia. How long before it would become the face of a
woman!

It was Lord St. Maurice's arrival which dissolved the spell. He had
missed his after-dinner cigar and chat with Lumley, and directly he
entered the drawing room he saw the cause. Adrienne's eyes and his met.
A little annoyed by his son's defection he did not hesitate to act.

"Miss Briscoe, are you too tired, or may we ask for a little music?" he
said, walking up to the pair.

She looked up, frowning a little at the interruption. Then a s