ention of doing harm, but admiration was
what she lived for, and to flirt with every man she met had become
almost as natural and necessary to her as to breathe.

Erica, out of loyalty to Mr. Fane-Smith and regard for Tom's future
happiness, felt bound to be hard-hearted and to separate them at dinner.
Tom used to sit at the bottom of the table as Raeburn did not care for
the trouble of carving; Erica was at the head with her father in his
usual place at her right hand. She put Rose in between him and the
professor who generally dined with them on Saturday; upon the opposite
side were Aunt Jean and M. Noirol. Now Rose, who had been quite in her
element as long as she had been talking with Tom in the green room, felt
decidedly out of her element when she was safely ensconced between her
white-haired uncle and the shaggy-looking professor. If Erica had felt
bewildered when first introduced to the gossip and small "society" talk
of Greyshot, Rose felt doubly bewildered when for the first time in her
life she came into a thoroughly scientific atmosphere. She realized that
there were a few things which she had yet to learn. She was not fond of
learning so the discovery was the reverse of pleasant; she felt ignorant
and humbled, liking to be AU FAIT at everything and to know things and
do things just a little better than other people. Having none of the
humility of a true learner, she only felt annoyed at her own ignorance,
not raised and bettered and stimulated by a glimpse of the infinite
greatness of science.

Raeburn, seeing that she was not in the least interested in the
discussion of the future of electricity, left the professor to continue
it with Tom, and began to talk to her about the loss of her purse,
and to tell her of various losses which he had had. But Rose had the
mortifying consciousness that all the time he talked he was listening to
the conversation between Erica and M. Noirol. As far as Rose could
make out it was on French politics; but they spoke so fast that her
indifferent school French was of very little service to her. By and by
Raeburn was drawn into the discussion and Rose was left to amuse herself
as well as she could by listening to a rapid flow of unintelligible
French on one side, and to equally unintelligible scientific talk on
the other. By and by this was merged into a discussion some recent book.
They seemed to get deeply interested in a dispute as to whether Spinoza
was or was not at any t