anseuse that had
just come out in the ballet, a piece of insolence and rebellion on
his part not to be tolerated; and when we add to these griefs an
uncomfortable neckcloth, and the tidings of an insurrection in a
Russian province where he owned immense property in mines, his state of
irritability may be leniently considered.

Jekyl, if truth were told, had as many troubles of his own to confront
as any of the rest. If the ocean he sailed in was not a great Atlantic,
his bark was still but a cockleshell; his course in life required
consummate skill and cleverness, and yet never could be safe even
with that. Notwithstanding all this, he alone was easy, natural, and
agreeable, not as many an inferior artist would have been agreeable, by
any over-effort to compensate for the lack of co-operation in others,
and thus make their silence and constraint but more palpable, his
pleasantry was tinged with the tone of the company, and all his little
smartnesses were rather insinuated than spoken. Quite satisfied if the
Prince listened, or Lady Hester smiled, more than rewarded when they
once both laughed at one of his sallies, he rattled on about the Court
and the town talk, the little scandals of daily history, and the petty
defections of those dear friends they nightly invited to their houses.
While thus, as it were, devoting himself to the amusement of the others,
his real occupation was an intense study of their thoughts, what was
uppermost in their minds, and in what train their speculations were
following. He had long suspected the Prince of being attracted by Kate
Dalton; now he was certain of it. Accustomed almost from childhood to
be flattered on every hand, and to receive the blandest smiles of beauty
everywhere, Midchekoff's native distrust armed him strongly against
such seductions; and had Kate followed the path of others, and exerted
herself to please him, her failure would have been certain. It was her
actual indifference her perfect carelessness on the subject was the
charm to his eyes, and he felt it quite a new and agreeable sensation
not to be made love to.

Too proud of her own Dalton blood to feel any elevation by the marked
notice of the great Russian, she merely accorded him so much of her
favor as his personal agreeability seemed to warrant; perhaps no
designed flattery could have been so successful. Another feeling, also,
enhanced his admiration of her. It was a part of that barbaric instinct
which seemed