ld of London society had learnt to associate with his
name.

He played the lover rather well, with that finish and absence of
self-consciousness which only comes from sincerity; and when Miss Chyne
found opportunity to look at him a second time she was fully
convinced that she loved him. She was, perhaps, carried off her feet a
little--metaphorically speaking, of course--by his evident sincerity.
At that moment she would have done anything that he had asked her. The
pleasures of society, the social amenities of aristocratic life, seemed
to have vanished suddenly into thin air, and only love was left. She had
always known that Jack Meredith was superior in a thousand ways to all
her admirers. More gentlemanly, more truthful, honester, nobler, more
worthy of love. Beyond that, he was cleverer, despite a certain laziness
of disposition--more brilliant and more amusing. He had always been to a
great extent the chosen one; and yet it was with a certain surprise and
sense of unreality that she found what she had drifted into. She saw the
diamond ring, and looked upon it with the beautiful emotions aroused
by those small stones in the female breast; but she did not seem to
recognise her own finger within the golden hoop.

It was at this moment--while she dwelt in this new unreal world--that he
elected to tell her of his quarrel with his father. And when one walks
through a maze of unrealities nothing seems to come amiss or to cause
surprise. He detailed the very words they had used, and to Millicent
Chyne it did not sound like a real quarrel such as might affect two
lives to their very end. It was not important. It did not come into her
life; for at that moment she did not know what her life was.

"And so," said Jack Meredith, finishing his story, "we have begun
badly--as badly as the most romantic might desire."

"Yes, theoretically it is consoling. But I am sorry, Jack, very sorry. I
hate quarrelling with anybody."

"So do I. I haven't time as a rule. But the old gentleman is so easy to
quarrel with, he takes all the trouble."

"Jack," she said, with pretty determination, "you must go and say you
are sorry. Go now! I wish I could go with you."

But Meredith did not move. He was smiling at her in evident admiration.
She looked very pretty with that determined little pout of the lips,
and perhaps she knew it. Moreover, he did not seem to attach so much
importance to the thought as to the result--to the mind as to the li