over their opera mantles, poor
Lady Kirkbank's complexion yellow with _mal de mer_, in spite of a
double coating of _Blanc de Fedora_, the last fashionable cosmetic.

To-night Lesbia was curiously silent, depressed even, as it seemed to
those who were interested in observing her; and all the world is
interested in a famous beauty. She was very pale, even her lips were
colourless, and the large violet eyes and firmly pencilled brows alone
gave colour to her face. She looked like a marble statue, the eyes and
eyebrows accentuated with touches of colour. Those lovely eyes had a
heavy look, as of trouble, weariness; nay, absolute distress.

Never had she looked less brilliant than to-night; never had she looked
more beautiful. It was the loveliness of a newly-awakened soul. The
wonderful Pandora-casket of life, with its infinite evil, its little
good, had given up its secret. She knew what passionate love really
means. She knew what such love mostly means--self-sacrifice, surrender
of the world's wealth, severance from friends, the breaking of all old
ties. To love as she loved means the crossing of a river more fatal than
the Rubicon, the casting of a die more desperate than that which Caesar
flung upon the board when he took up arms against the Republic.

The river was not yet crossed, but her feet were on the margin, wet with
the ripple of the stream. The fatal die was not yet cast, but the
dice-box was in her hand ready for the throw. Lesbia and Montesma danced
together--not too often, three waltzes out of sixteen--but when they
were so waltzing they were the cynosure of the room. That betting of
which Maulevrier had heard was rife to-night, and the odds upon the
Cuban had gone up. It was nine to four now that those two would be over
the border before the week was out.

Mr. Smithson was not neglectful of his affianced. He took her into the
supper-room, where she drank some Moselle cup, but ate nothing. He sat
out three or four waltzes with her on the lawn, listening to the murmer
of the sea, and talking very little.

'You are looking wretchedly ill to-night, Lesbia,' he said, after a
dismal silence.

'I am sorry that I should put you to shame by my bad looks,' she
answered, with that keen acidity of tone which indicates irritated
nerves.

'You know that I don't mean anything of the kind; you are always lovely,
always the loveliest everywhere; but I don't like to see you so ghastly
pale.'

'I suppose I am over-