r. Spence."

With a kind of military "about face" he turned and left her abruptly, and
she watched him as he hurried across the lawn until he had disappeared
behind the trees near the house. When she sat down on the bench again,
she found that she was trembling a little. Was the unexpected to occur to
her from now on? Was it true, as the Vicomte had said, that she was
destined to be loved amidst the play of drama?

She felt sorry for him because he had loved her enough to fling to the
winds his chances of wealth for her sake--a sufficient measure of the
feelings of one of his nationality and caste. And she permitted, for an
instant, her mind to linger on the supposition that Howard Spence had
never come into her life; might she not, when the Vicomte had made his
unexpected and generous avowal, have accepted him? She thought of the
romances of her childish days, written at fever heat, in which ladies
with titles moved around and gave commands and rebuked lovers who slipped
in through wicket gates. And to think that she might have been a
Vicomtesse and have lived in a castle!

A poor Vicomtesse, it is true.

CHAPTER XI

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Honora sat still upon the bench. After an indefinite period she saw
through the trees a vehicle on the driveway, and in it a single
passenger. And suddenly it occurred to her that the passenger must be
Peter, for Mrs. Holt had announced her intention of sending for him. She
arose and approached the house, not without a sense of agitation.

She halted a moment at a little distance from the porch, where he was
talking with Howard Spence and Joshua, and the fact that he was an
unchanged Peter came to her with a shock of surprise. So much, in less
than a year, had happened to Honora! And the sight of him, and the sound
of his voice, brought back with a rush memories of a forgotten past. How
long it seemed since she had lived in St. Louis!

Yes, he was the same Peter, but her absence from him had served to
sharpen her sense of certain characteristics. He was lounging in his
chair with his long legs crossed, with one hand in his pocket, and talking
to these men as though he had known them always. There was a quality
about him which had never struck her before, and which eluded exact
definition. It had never occurred to her, until now, when she saw him out
of the element with which she had always associated him, that Peter Erwin
had a personality. That personality was a mixtur