riendship between them
was no fable. To-night it would bear fruit. False, she believed
her--well, she should see.

In a way, she clung to Beauclerk as a means of escaping
Baltimore--throwing out a thousand wiles to charm him to her side, and
succeeding. Three times she had given a smiling "No" to Lord Baltimore's
demand for a dance, and, regardless of opinion, had flung herself into a
wild and open flirtation with Beauclerk.

But it is growing toward midnight, and her strength is failing her.
These people, will they never go, will she never be able to seek her own
room, and solitude, and despair without calling down comment on her
head, and giving Isabel--that cold woman--the chance of sneering at her
weakness?

A sudden sense of the uselessness of it all has taken possession of her;
her heart sinks. It is at this moment that Baltimore once more comes up
to her.

"This dance?" says he. "It is half way through. You are not engaged, I
suppose, as you are sitting down? May I have what remains of it?"

She makes a little gesture of acquiescence, and, rising, places her hand
upon his arm.

CHAPTER XLVI.

"O life! thou art a galling load
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I."

The crisis has come, she tells herself, with a rather grim smile. Well,
better have it and get it over.

That there had been a violent scene between Baltimore and his wife after
dinner had somehow become known to her, and the marks of it still
betrayed themselves in the former's frowning brow and sombre eyes.

It had been more of a scene than usual. Lady Baltimore, generally so
calm, had for once lost herself, and given way to a passion of
indignation that had shaken her to her very heart's core. Though so
apparently unmoved and almost insolent in her demeanor toward Lady
Swansdown during their interview, she had been, nevertheless, cruelly
wounded by it, and could not forgive Baltimore in that he had been its
cause.

As for him, he could not forgive her all she had said and looked. With a
heart on fire he had sought Lady Swansdown, the one woman whom he knew
understood and believed in him. It was a perilous moment, and Beatrice
knew it. She knew, too, that angry despair was driving him into her
arms, not honest affection. She was strong enough to face this and
refused to deceive herself about it.

"I didn't think you and Beauclerk had anything in common," says
Baltimore, seating himself beside her