ette--he preferred a blonde; brunette beauty had no charm for him.
He liked gentle, fair-haired women, tender of heart and soul--brilliancy
did not charm him. Even when, previously to going abroad, he had gone
down to Verdun Royal to say good-by, there was not the least approach to
love in his heart. He had thought Philippa very charming and very
picturesque as she stood under the lilac-trees; he had said truly that
he should never see a lilac without thinking of her as she stood there.
But that had not meant that he loved her.

He had bent down, as he considered himself in courtesy bound, to kiss
her face when he bade her adieu; but it was no lover's kiss that fell so
lightly on her lips. He realized to himself most fully the fact that,
although he liked her, cared a great deal for her, and felt that she
stood in the place of a sister to him, he did not love her.

But about Philippa herself? He was not vain; the proud, stately Lord
Arleigh knew nothing of vanity. He could not think that the childish
folly had taken deep root in her heart-he would not believe it. She had
been a child like himself; perhaps even she had forgotten the nonsense
more completely than he himself had. On his return to England, the first
thing he heard when he reached London was that his old friend and
playfellow--the girl he had called his little wife--was the belle of the
season, with half London at her feet.

Chapter VII.

Lord Arleigh had been so accustomed to think of Philippa as a child that
he could with difficulty imagine the fact that she was now a lovely
girl, and one of the wealthiest heiresses in London. He felt some
curiosity about her. How would she greet him? How would she receive him?
He wrote to her at once, asking permission to visit her, and he came
away from that visit with his eyes a little dazzled, his brain somewhat
dazed, but his heart untouched. His fancy was somewhat disturbed by the
haunting memory of dark, splendid eyes, lighted with fire and passion,
and a bright, radiant face and scarlet lips--by a _melange_ of amber,
lace, and perfume--but his heart was untouched. She was beautiful beyond
his fairest dreams of woman--he owned that to himself--but it was not
the kind of beauty that he admired it was too vivid, too highly colored,
too brilliant. He preferred the sweet, pure lily to the queenly rose.
Still he said to himself that he had never seen a face or figure like
Miss L'Estrange's. No wonder that sh