mber him," says Monica, this fetching
description having cleared her memory. "I thought to myself how odd he
and the other man, Mr. Ryde, looked together, one as big as the other
was little."

"I think there is more matter than brains about Ryde," says Desmond,
contemptuously. "Do you think your aunt will let you go to this dance at
Clonbree?"

"Oh, no; I am _sure_ not. My aunts would be certain to look upon a dance
in the Barracks as something too awfully dissipated."

"For one reason I should be glad you didn't go."

"Glad?" opening her eyes.

"Yes. That fellow Ryde never took his eyes off you yesterday."

"Is _that_ a crime?"

"In my eyes, _yes_."

"And you would wish me to be kept a prisoner at home just because one
man looked at me?"

"I don't want any one to look at you but me!" Then he comes a little
closer to her and compels her, by the very strength of his regard, to
let her eyes meet his. "Do you like Ryde?" he asks, somewhat
imperiously. "Monica, answer me."

It is the second time he has called her by her Christian name, and a
startled expression passes over her face.

"Well, he was nice to me," she says, with a studied hesitation that
belongs to the first bit of coquetry she has ever practised in her life.
She has tasted the sweetness of power, and, fresh as her knowledge is
she estimates the advantage of it to a nicety.

"I believe a man has only to be six feet one to have every woman in the
world in love with him," says Desmond, wrathfully, who is only five feet
eleven.

"I am not exactly in _love_ with Mr. Ryde," says Monica, sweetly, with
averted face and a coy air, assumed for her companion's discomfiture;
"but----"

"But _what_?"

"But, I was going to say, there is nothing remarkable in that, as I am
not in love with _any one_, and hope I never shall be. I wonder where
Kit can have gone to: will you get up there, Mr. Desmond, and look?"
Breaking off a tiny blade of grass from the bank near her, she puts it
between her pretty teeth, and slowly nibbles it with an air of utter
indifference to all the world that drives Mr. Desmond nearly out of his
wits.

Disdaining to take any heed of her "notice to quit," and quite
determined to know the worst, he says, defiantly,--

"If you _do_ go to this dance, may I consider myself engaged to you for
the first waltz?" There is quite a frown upon his face as he says this;
but it hasn't the faintest effect upon Monica. She is not at all
impress