urmurs Molly, in the faintest, fondest tone,
using toward him for the first time this tenderest of all tender love
words.

In another moment his arms are around her, her head is on his breast.
He is vanquished,--routed with slaughter.

In the heart of this weak-minded, infatuated young man there lingers
not the slightest thought of bitterness toward this girl who has caused
him so many hours of torment, and whose cool, soft cheek now rests
contentedly against his.

"My love,--my own,--you do care for me a little?" he asks, in tones
that tremble with gladness and sorrow, and disbelief.

"Of course, foolish boy." With a bright smile that revives him. "That
is, at times, when you do not speak to me as though I were the fell
destroyer of your peace or the veriest shrew that ever walked the
earth. Sometimes, you know,"--with a sigh,--"you are a very
uncomfortable Teddy."

She slips a fond warm arm around his shoulder and caresses the back of
his neck with her soft fingers. Coquette she may be, flirt she is to
her finger-tips, but nothing can take away from her lovableness. To
Luttrell she is at this moment the most charming thing on which the sun
ever shone.

"How can you be so unkind to me," he says, "so cold? Don't you know it
breaks my heart?"

"_I_ cold!" With reproachful wonder. "_I_ unkind! Oh, Teddy!
and what are you? Think of all you said to me yesterday and this
morning; and now, now you called me a coquette! What could be worse
than that? To say it of me, of all people! Ted,"--with much
solemnity,--"stare at me,--stare _hard_,--and see do I look the
_very least bit_ in the world like a coquette?"

He does stare hard, and doing so forgets the question in hand,
remembering only that her eyes, her lips, her hair are all the most
perfect of their kind.

"My beloved," he whispers, caressingly.

"It is all your own fault," goes on Circe, strong in argument. "When I
provoke you I care nothing for Philip Shadwell, or your Mr. Potts, or
any of them: but when you are uncivil to me, what am I to do? I am
driven into speaking to some one, although I don't in the least care
for general admiration, as you well know."

He does not know; common sense forbids him to know; but she is telling
her fibs with so much grace of feature and voice that he refuses to see
her sin. He tries, therefore, to look as if he agreed with her, and
succeeds very fairly.

"Then you did not mean anything you said?" he asks, eagerly.

"