incalculable importance at that moment, and, perhaps,
decisive of the fate of two human hearts,--Zelma smiled. It was a
quick, involuntary smile, which seemed to _escape_ from the firm lips
and half-averted eyes, flashed over the face, touched the cold features
with strange radiance, and then was gone,--and, in its place, the old
shadow of reserve and distrust, for the moment, darker than ever.

But to the adventurous lover that brief light had revealed his doubtful
way clear before him. He saw, with a thrill of exultation, that
henceforth he had really nothing to fear from such womanly defences as
he had counted on,--coldness, prejudice, disdain,--that all he had taken
for these were but unsubstantial shadows. Still he showed no premature
triumph in word or look, but remained silent and humble, waiting the
reply to his passionate appeal, as though life or death, in very truth,
were depending upon it. And Zelma spoke at last,--briefly and coldly,
but in a manner neither suspicious nor unfriendly. She herself, she
said, was unconventional, in her instincts, at least,--so could afford
to pardon somewhat of lawlessness in another,--especially, she added,
with a shy smile, in one whom Melpomene, rather than Cupid, had made
mad. Still she was not a Juliet, though he, for all she knew, might be
a Romeo; and only in lands verging on the tropics, or in the soul of a
poet, could a passion like that of the gentle Veronese spring up, bud,
and blossom, in a single night. As for her, the fogs of England, the
heavy chill of its social atmosphere, had obstructed the ripening
sunshine of romance and repressed the flowering of the heart--

"And kept your beautiful nature all the more pure and fresh!" exclaimed
Mr. Lawrence Bury, with real or well-assumed enthusiasm; but Zelma,
replying to his interruption only by a slight blush, went on to say,
that she had been taught that poetry, art, and romances were all idle
pastimes and perilous lures, unbecoming and unwholesome to a young
English gentlewoman, whose manifest destiny it was to tread the dull,
beaten track of domestic duty, with spirit chastened and conformed.
She had had, she would acknowledge, some aspirations and rebellious
repinings, some wild day-dreams of life of another sort; but it was best
that she should put these down,--yes, doubtless, best that she should
fall into her place in the ranks of duty and staid respectability,
and be a mere gentlewoman, like the rest.--Here a