ou amusing
yourself?"

"I--I tried to avoid you," she replied, in a low voice.

"I am engaged."

"Engaged!" He sprang to his feet. "Engaged! Ah, no, I will not believe
it. You were engaged when you came here?"

She was no little alarmed by the violence which he threw into his words.
At the same time, she was indignant. And yet a mischievous sprite within
her led her on to tell him the truth.

"No, I am going to marry Mr. Howard Spence, although I do not wish it
announced."

For a moment he stood motionless, speechless, staring at her, and then he
seemed to sway a little and to choke.

"No, no," he cried, "it cannot be! My ears have deceived me. I am not
sane. You are going to marry him--? Ah, you have sold yourself."

"Monsieur de Toqueville," she said, "you forget yourself. Mr. Spence is
an honourable man, and I love him."

The Vicomte appeared to choke again. And then, suddenly, he became
himself, although his voice was by no means natural. His elaborate and
ironic bow she remembered for many years.

"Pardon, Mademoiselle," he said, "and adieu. You will be good enough to
convey my congratulations to Mr. 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 i