ss Windsor in Paris two years before;
so her eyes, after wandering over the table, fixed themselves upon her.
With a woman's instinct, Mrs. Carey had known that Geoffrey would not
have been so indifferent to her if he had been fancy free; when she
first saw him, before dinner, her heart throbbed with passion, and she
determined to wind around him again the chain of flowers which he had
snapped so easily when the great god of modern love, "Juxtaposition,"
deserted her. But now she saw that he had long since ceased to care for
her. He had called her "Eleanor" once, to be sure; but it was only after
she had forced his hand.

She picked up the large bouquet of roses which lay by her plate, and
raising them to her face as if to inhale their fragrance, she
attentively observed Miss Windsor, for she felt that there must be
something between her and Geoffrey; some tie stronger than the memory of
a dead flirtation. Her masked battery served her purpose well, for
Maggie, presently, after smiling faintly at some remark of Mr. Prouty's,
looked quickly over toward Lord Brompton, who was at the time listening
attentively to a political conversation between Mr. Lincoln and Mr.
Windsor. Maggie only looked at him for a moment, but Mrs. Carey saw that
she looked at him with that fondness with which a woman gazes at the man
she loves when she thinks that she is unobserved. Mrs. Carey put down
her bouquet and turned to Geoffrey.

"Miss Windsor is not a bad-looking girl, is she?" she asked.

"You put me in an awkward dilemma, Mrs. Carey," replied Geoffrey, a
little nervously, "in the alternative of criticising my hostess
unfavorably or praising the looks of one woman to another. Is that quite
fair?"

"Her features are not regular, yet she seems attractive in a way," she
continued, not waiting for his answer or answering his question. "You
knew her before, did you not?"

"Yes, slightly."

"That is to say, you had a desperate affair with her?"

"It seems to me that you jump at conclusions."

"Not at all. She is interested in you; I have eyes in my head."

"I should think that you had," laughed Geoffrey, as their glances met.

"And I have noticed that she has been continually looking over toward
us. The old Duke has not been lively, you see, and that _Saturday
Reviewer_ is a disagreeable thing. How she has longed to have you next
to her!"

"You flatter me, Mrs. Carey," answered Geoffrey, who was annoyed, as all
men are, when they