ain to be seen he had only eyes for
Sabine--who cared for him not at all. The Princess found Cranley Beaton
absolutely tiresome--no better than the _New York Herald_, she thought
pettishly, or the _Continental Daily Mail_--to be with! The waters were
getting on her nerves, too; she would be glad to leave and go to
Sorrento with that Cupid among infants, Girolamo. Sabine had better
divorce her horror of a husband, and marry the man and have done with
it!

Now the walk from the Aberg down through the woods is a peculiarly
delightful one and, even in the season at Carlsbad, not over-crowded by
people. Henry Fordyce felt duly elated at the prospect, and Mrs. Howard
had an air of pensive mischief in her violet eyes. Lord Fordyce, who had
been accustomed for years to making speeches for his party, and was
known as a ready orator, found himself rather silent, and even a little
nervous, for the first hundred yards or so. She looked so bewitching, he
thought, in her fresh white linen, showing up the round peachiness of
her young cheeks, and those curling, childish, brown lashes making their
shadow. He was overcome with a desire to kiss her. She was so supremely
healthy and delectable. He felt he had been altogether a fool in his
estimate of the serious necessities of life hitherto. Woman was now one
of them--and this woman supremely so. Why, if she could be freed from
bonds, should she not become his wife? But he felt it might be wiser not
to be too precipitate about suggesting the thing to her. She had
certainly given him no indication that she would receive the idea
favorably, and appeared to be of the type of character which could not
be coerced. He felt very glad Michael Arranstoun had not responded to
his pressing request to join him. It would be far better that that
irritatingly attractive specimen of manhood should not step upon the
scene, until he himself had some definite hope of affairs being
satisfactorily settled.

They began their talk upon the lightest subjects, and gradually drifted
into one of the discussions of emotions in the abstract which are so
fascinating--and so dangerous--and which require skill to direct and
continue.

Mrs. Howard held that pleasure could alone come from harmony of body and
spirit, while Lord Fordyce maintained that wild discords could also
produce it, and that it could not be defined as governed by any law.

"One is sometimes full of pleasure even against one's will," he said.
"Eve