ks half
round, as by an irresistible unconscious impulse of curiosity.

Brandolin notes the gesture, as her actions have an interest for him
which grows daily in its fascination. "There is Dorothy Usk's
Ph[oe]nix," he says to her, in a low tone, when the Babe has scampered
off after bon-bons: he indicates Gervase with a glance. Her eyebrows
contract slightly, as in some displeasure or constraint.

"Lady Usk is very soon satisfied," she replies, coldly. "Her own
amiability makes her see perfection everywhere."

"It is a quality we cannot value too highly in so imperfect a world. It
is better than seeing everything _en noir_, surely?" says Brandolin. "If
we make people what we think them, as optimists say, it is best to be
optimistic."

"I dislike optimism," she says, curtly. "It is absurd and untrue. Our
Dostoievsky is a wiser novelist than your Dickens. One must believe
something," she says.

"It is pretty for a woman to think so," says Brandolin, "but myself I
have never seen why. I may hope, I may wish, I may regret, I may--if I
am very sanguine--even expect; but believe--no!"

"Perhaps I should like to believe in a woman," he adds, more softly,
with that inflection of his voice which has always had at all events the
effect of making women believe in him.

Madame Sabaroff is not so easily touched as many. She pauses a moment,
then says, with a certain weariness, "Anybody who can believe can love:
that is nothing new."

"What would be new? To love and disbelieve in what we love? It would be
very painful."

"It would be a test," says his companion.

Then she drops the subject decidedly, by approaching the other ladies.
Brandolin has a faint sense of discomfiture and sadness: he is
accustomed to very facile conquests; and yet he is not a coxcomb, like
Lawrence Hamilton; he did not precisely anticipate one here, but habit
is second nature, and it has been his habit to succeed with women with
rapidity and ease. That sense of mystery which there is also for him in
the Princess Xenia oppresses whilst it allures him. He is English enough
to think that he dislikes mystery, yet as an element of romance it has
always an irresistible fascination for romantic temperaments.

Gervase meanwhile has sunk into a chair by the side of Nina Curzon, and
is saying, in a whisper, "Who is that lady? The one with her back to us,
to whom Lord Brandolin is so _empresse_? I thought that I knew all the
Usks' people."

"Look in your