de me confidences.

He was immensely taken with Miss Trumpet, he allowed, and could almost
look upon the matter as a pleasure instead of a duty now.

"If you had shown the slightest sign that you would ever care for
me, I should not have thought of her, though," he said. "You will be
sorry, one day, that you are as cold as ice."

"Why should a person be accused of having no musical sense because one
particular tune does not cause one rhapsodies?" I asked. "The one idea
of a man seems to be, if a woman does not adore him personally, it is
because she is as cold as ice. Surely that is illogical."

He looked at me very straightly for a moment.

"I believe you do care for some one," he said. "I shall watch and
see."

"Very well," I laughed.

None of the people I have met since my marriage have seemed to think
it possible that I should care for Augustus, or that my wedding-ring
should be the slightest bar to my feelings or their advances.

"You are a dangerously attractive woman, you know--one's idea of what
a lady ought to look like. And you move with a grace one never sees
now. And your eyes--your eyes are the eyes of the Sphinx. I fancy, if
I could make you care, I would forget all the world. I am glad you are
going to-morrow."

"I understood you to say you were greatly attracted by Miss Trumpet,"
I said, demurely.

And so the evening passed.

"I think it is going all right," Lady Tilchester said to me as we
walked up-stairs together. "They are making arrangements to meet in
London, and Luffy has not been asked to join the theatre-party."

"No. He is going to lunch and to take them to skate," I said.

"Oh, the clever girl!" and she laughed. "But I expect she will decide
to be a duchess, in the end."

"If you could tell her anything especially splendid about her position
at the Coronation next year, should she accept the Duke, I am sure it
would have an effect."

"Cordelia is behaving like a fool about it. She asked them here, and
made all the arrangements, and now is absolutely uncivil to them."

"How flattered Lord Luffton ought to be!" I laughed.

"Yes, if it were any one else; but Cordelia has too many fancies.
How glad one should be that one has other interests in life! Really,
when I look round at most of my friends, I feel thankful. Perhaps,
otherwise, I should have been as they are."

Augustus had greatly profited by Lord Luffton's defection. Whether it
was to make the latter jealous, I do no