ing!"

By the light stir of silk she was aware that Clara had risen. She looked
up quickly to encounter that odd look. Clara's face was so smooth, so
polished, so unruffled, as to appear almost blank, but none the less
Flora saw it all in Clara's eye--a look that was not new to her. It was
the same with which Clara had met the announcement of her engagement;
the same look with which she had confronted every allusion to the
approaching marriage; the same with which she now surveyed the mention
of the engagement ring--a look neither approving nor dissenting, whose
calm, considerate speculation seemed to repudiate all interest positive
or negative in the approaching event except the one large question,
"What is to become of me?" Many times Clara had held it up before her,
not as a question, certainly not as an accusation; as a flat assertion
of fact; but to-night Flora felt it so directly and imperatively aimed
at her that it seemed this time to demand an audible response. And
Clara's way of getting up, and standing there, with her gloves on,
poised and expectant, as if she were only waiting an opportunity to take
farewell, took on, in the light of her look, the fantastic appearance of
a final departure. "I'm afraid," she mildly reminded them, "that Shima
announced the carriage ten minutes ago."

"Oh, dear, I'm so sorry!" Flora's eyes wavered apologetically in the
direction of the waiting Japanese. Clara's flicker of amusement made her
hate herself the moment it was out. She could always depend on herself
when she knew she was on exhibition. She could be sure of the right
thing if it were only large enough, but she was still caught at odd
moments by the trifles, the web of a certain social habit into which she
had slipped, full grown on the smooth surface of her father's millions.
Clara's fleeting smile lit up these trifles to her now as enormous. It
took advantage of her small deficit to point out to her more plainly
than ever to what large blunders she might be liable when she had cut
loose from Clara's guiding, reminding, prompting genius, and chose to
confront the world without it.

To be sure, she was not to confront it alone; but, looking at Harry, it
came to her with a moment's qualm that she did not know him as well as
she had thought.

II

A NAME GOES ROUND A TABLE

For to-night, from the moment he had appeared, she had recognized an
unfamiliar mood in him, and it had come out more the more they had