not force yourself to
answer me at any given time. I can wait."

"You _have_ waited," said she gratefully--"waited too long already.
Do not encourage me in my weakness. Believe that I will tell you
to-morrow night my final decision."

Later in the evening, Victor Clare was leaving the drawing-room as
Miss Milbourne entered it. They came face to face rather unexpectedly,
and while the gentleman fell back, the lady extended her hand.

"Have you stayed away so long that you have forgotten your friends,
Major Clare?" she said with a smile which was bright but rather
tremulous, like a gleam of sunshine on rippling water. "You have not
even said good-evening to me, and yet you have an air as if you had
said good-night to the rest of the company."

"So I have," answered Victor, smiling in turn, partly from the
pleasure of meeting her, partly from the sheer magnetism of her
glance, "but it is no fault of mine that I have not been able to speak
to you: I have found no opportunity."

"But I thought you always said that; people made opportunities when
they desired to do so?"

"Then the time has come for me to retract my assertion. As a general
rule, a man cannot make opportunities: he can only take advantage of
them when they come, as I hope to take advantage of the present," he
added smiling.

"But I thought you were going home?"

"I _was_ going home a minute ago, but so long as you will let me talk
to you I shall stay."

"It is a very small favor to grant," said Eleanor, blushing a little.
"But why were you leaving so early?"

"Partly because I had no hope of seeing you; partly because I am not
a 'young duke' to pencil a line to my steward and know that a princely
collation will be served at noon to-morrow for half a hundred, or even
for a dozen or two people."

"What do you mean?" she asked, for though she caught the allusion to
Disraeli's rose-colored romance, the application puzzled her.

"I see you have not heard of our gypsy plan," he answered, and at once
proceeded to detail it.

She was not so much delighted as he expected, but a pretty, lucid
gleam came into her eyes at the mention of Claremont.

"I shall be glad to see your home," she said quietly. "I have heard so
much of its beauty and its antiquity."

"It is pretty, and it is old," said he, "but it will not be mine much
longer. I am negotiating its sale now."

She started: "What! you were in earnest, then? You are really going to
Egypt?"

"Ye