snubbed him many a time. And she glanced him
over with a sudden interest. It was a manly face and a manly figure; and
she wondered from what remote corner of the earth Sylvie Barry had
summoned this fair, stout giant, who made her think of the Norse gods of
her childish romances. She always liked strength: Sylvie was for
tenderness, pathos, and beauty.

"Good-evening," inclining her proud head. "Did I interrupt? You were
singing?"

"That is finished," returned Sylvie, with her peculiar manner, as if,
being hostess here, she should have proper respect paid to her position;
and each guest should be as deferent to the other as if she were a
little queen, and this her court.

She picked up a stray piece of music that had fallen to the floor,
seated Irene, and half turned to Jack. Any other woman might have been
awkward.

"I will leave you two ladies to yourselves," began Jack; but Irene
interrupted,--

"No, Mr. Darcy: I shall think I have driven you away;" with a beguiling
smile. "If you understand music, you may have a taste in the fine arts
of dress as well. At all events, look over these elegant women in their
party-gowns, and tell me which is fairest and rarest."

The honesty of the glance, although it was coquettish, told Jack that
Miss Irene did not remember him. For, of all the haughty Lawrence women,
she had the name of being the haughtiest. She gathered up her skirts in
other people's houses when the plebeian element came too near. Now she
waved him to a chair, and gently sank into another, her trailing robe of
thin filmy black with golden flecks falling about her like clouds in a
gusty sky.

He took the seat indicated. Some strange feeling moved him, an
enchantment that he had never before experienced. The very air about her
was filled with a subtle, indescribable perfume that he should always
associate with a tall, dark-eyed woman,--a glimpse of the Orient and its
sweetness, he fancied.

Sylvie took her place, and began to tumble over the colored plates.

"I'm so tired of those Watteau things!" began Miss Lawrence
disdainfully. "They all savor of bread-and-butter girls,--a shepherdess
with her crook,--bah! And I've been Marie Stuart so many times. If it
were a masquerade; but garden-parties are beginning to prove bores,
after all. There is nothing new about them, only to out-shine every
other woman. A high ambition, is it not, Mr. Darcy?"

"A temptation perhaps."

The tone had in it a bit of delic