. The latter turns to him with a bright smile that
renders his handsome face quite beautiful. Seeing its charm, Kelly asks
himself, in half-angry fashion, how Olga can possibly hesitate for one
moment between him and Rossmoyne. "But they are all alike heartless,"
he decides, bitterly.

"I am feeling neither pale nor wan," says Ronayne, still smiling. "It
must be the moon, if anything. Look here, Kelly, something to-night has
told me that it will all come right in the end. I shall gain her against
the heaviest odds."

"If you mean Rossmoyne, he's the heaviest mortal I know," says Kelly.

"Well, he _isn't_ suited to her, is he?" There is a strange excitement
in Ronayne's manner. "Putting me out of the question altogether, I don't
believe he could make her happy. If I thought he could, of course I
should then go away somewhere, and find contentment in the thought of
hers; but----_you_ don't think she would do well to marry him do you
Kelly?" He has controlled his features to an almost marvellous calm, but
the agony of his question in his eyes cannot be hid.

"I think the woman who could even _hesitate_ between you and him must be
a fool and worse," says Kelly, whose temper is not his own to-night. "He
is a pedantic ass, more in love with himself than he can ever be with
anything else. While you----Look here, Ronayne; I wonder if any woman is
_worth_ it."

"Oh, _she_ is," says Ronayne, with tender conviction. "I don't think
she is at all like other people; do you? There's something
different--something _special_--about her."

"I daresay," says Kelly, gently, which is rather good of him,
considering his frame of mind.

"You're an awfully kind sort of fellow, Kelly, do you know?" says
Ronayne, slipping his arm through his. "You are the only one I ever talk
to about _her_. And I suppose I must bore you, though you don't say it.
It's the most generous thing I know, your sympathizing with me as you
do. If you were in love yourself, I could understand it. But you are
not, you know."

"Oh, no; of course not," says Mr. Kelly.

"Is that your guitar, Mrs. Bohun? I wish you would sing us something,"
says Miss Browne at this moment.

"I don't sing much,--and never out of doors, it hurts my throat so,"
says Olga, smiling at her; "but if any else will sing, I will gladly
play to them."

"Mr. Ronayne,--Ulic,--come here," says Monica, half shyly, but very
sweetly. "You can sing, I know."

"Yes come here," says Olga, turning