rnation, and expiring with embarrassment, raised
her eyes, and encountered his fixed on her with a fond, sad, but _not_
responsive expression. If shame could kill, she had received her _coup de
grace_ that moment. He had understood, and yet said nothing.

The most rapturous gratitude on his part would hardly have reconciled
her to herself; not to be met half-way was ignominious rejection.

It had all been the work of one moment, and relief came in the next with
the entrance of Colonel Rolleston. Cecil, feeling as if delivered from a
spell, got out of the room, and entrenched herself in her own, where her
thoughts became almost unendurable.

In horror at what she had done, her first wish was never to see Bertie
again. Every particle of pleasure in his society must now be over since
that one mad, unguarded sentence.

"I might have known," thought she, bitterly, "that that false,
caressing manner of his never meant anything. I have seen it with a dozen
girls--even Bluebell,"--here she winced; "and yet in the face of all
probability I must needs believe myself more to him than any one, because
it suits him to make me the receptacle of his worries. Well, he is
disinterested, at any rate, since all my money has no more attractions
for him than myself."

A stormy hour did poor Cecil pass with her wounded pride, when she was
interrupted by Lola, the Mercury of the establishment, who came to tell
her that "dinner would be an hour earlier, because Bertie was going
away."

Cecil received the intelligence very shortly, and nipped in the bud her
evident intention of lingering by declaring herself "busy," which that
astute young person, seeing no signs of employment, interpreted as
"cross."

"I must face it," thought she, as the last peal of the gong jarred on her
nerves. She descended just in time to see Colonel and Mrs. Rolleston
disappear into the dining-room. Du Meresq, who had waited, eagerly placed
her hand under his arm, and drew her back a moment.

"Cecil, where have you been hiding all this afternoon?"

I suppose he had the key to the answer, for the changing hues of her
complexion, in which pride struggled with confusion, was the only one he
got.

"You utter little goose!" said Bertie, emphatically, crushing the hand
under his arm as they entered the dining-room. Curious to relate, Cecil
scarcely felt so ashamed as she had an hour ago. Not a chance would she
give him, though, of speaking a syllable in private; a