, he was incapable of causing her the smallest annoyance, or
being guilty,--as far as she herself was concerned,--of the smallest
indiscretion.

"You know, Miss St. Quentin," he remarked, as he established himself
comfortably, not to say cosily, on a sofa beside her,--"over and above
the pleasure of a peaceful little talk with you, I am not altogether
sorry to seek retirement. You see, between ourselves, I'm not,
unfortunately, in exactly good odour with some members of the family
just now. I don't think I'm shy----"

Honoria smiled at him through the dimness.

"I don't think you're shy," she said.

"Well, you know, when you come to consider it from an unprejudiced
standpoint, what the dickens is the use of being shy? It's only an
inverted kind of conceit at best, and half the time it makes you stand
in your own light."

"Clearly it's a mistake every way," the young lady asserted. "And,
happily, it's one of which I can entirely acquit you of being guilty."

Lord Shotover threw back his head and looked sideways at his
companion.--Wonderfully, graceful woman she was certainly! Gave you the
feeling she'd all the time there was or ever would be. Delightful thing
to see a woman who was never in a hurry.

"No, honestly I don't believe I'm weak in the way of shyness," he
continued. "If I had been, I shouldn't be here to-night. My sister
Louisa didn't press me to come. Strange as it may appear to you, Miss
St. Quentin, I give you my word she didn't. Nor has she regarded me
with an exactly favourable eye since my arrival. I am not abashed, not
a bit. But I can't disguise from myself that again I have gone, and
been, and jolly well put my foot in it."

He whistled very softly under his breath.--"Oh! I have, I promise you,
even on the most modest computation, very extensively and
comprehensively put my foot in it!"

"How?" inquired Honoria.

Lord Shotover's confidences invariably amused her, and just now she
welcomed amusement. For crossing her hostess' boudoir she had
momentarily caught sight of that which changed the speculative sarcasm
of her meditations to something approaching pain--namely, a pretty,
wide-eyed, childish face rising from out a cloud of white tulle, white
roses, and diamonds, the expression of which had seemed to her
distressingly remote from all the surrounding gaiety and splendour.
Actualities and appearances here were surely radically at variance?
And, now, she smilingly turned on her elbow and