oyne--enough.

CHAPTER XX.

IN DIRER STRAITS.

Now, when a young man, in whatever wayward mood of petulance or defiance
or wounded self-love, chooses to play tricks with his own fate, he is
pretty sure to discover that sooner or later he has himself to reckon
with--his other and saner self that will arise and refuse to be
silenced. And this awakening came almost directly to Lionel Moore. Even
as he went down to the theatre that same evening, he began to wonder
whether Miss Burgoyne would really be wearing the ring he had given her.
Or would she not rather consider the whole affair a joke?--not a very
clever joke, indeed, but at least something to be put on one side and
forgotten. She had been inclined to laugh at the idea of two people
becoming engaged to each other in the middle of the London streets. A
life-pledge offered and accepted in front of a window in
Piccadilly!--why, such was the way of comic opera, not of the actual
world. Jests of that kind were all very well in the theatre, but they
were best confined to the stage. And would not Miss Burgoyne understand
that on a momentary impulse he had yielded to a fit of half-sullen
recklessness, and would she not be quite ready and willing to release
him?

But when, according to custom, he went into her room that evening, he
soon became aware that Miss Burgoyne did not at all treat this matter as
a jest.

"See!" she said to him, with a becoming shyness--and she showed him how
cleverly she had covered her engagement-ring with a little band of
flesh-tinted india-rubber, "No one will be able to see it? and I sha'n't
have to take it off at all. Why, I could play Galatea, and not a human
being would notice that the statue was wearing a ring!"

She seemed very proud and pleased and happy, though she spoke in an
undertone, for Jane was within earshot. As for him, he did not say
anything. Of course he was bound to stand by what he had done and suffer
the consequences, whatever they might be. When he left the room and went
up-stairs into the wings, it was in a vague sort of stupefaction; but
here were the immediate exigencies of the stage, and perhaps it was
better not to look too far ahead.

But it was with just a little sense of shame that he found, when the
piece was over, and they were ready to leave the theatre, that Miss
Burgoyne expected him to accompany her on her way home. If only he had
had sufficient courage, he might have said to her,

"Look here;