w and eyes softly illuminated. He felt within him a sudden
snapping of restraints. Why--why refuse what was so clearly within his
grasp? Love has many manners--many entrances--and many exits.

"When will you tell me all that I want to know about you?" he said,
bending towards her with tender insistence. "There is so much I have
to ask."

"Oh, some time," she said, hurriedly, her pulses quickening. "Mine is
not a story to be told on a great day like this."

He was silent a moment, but his face spoke for him.

"Our friendship has been a beautiful thing, hasn't it?" he said, at
last, in a voice of emotion. "Look here!" He thrust his hand into his
breast-pocket and half withdrew it. "Do you see where I carry
your letters?"

"You shouldn't--they are not worthy."

"How charming you are in that dress--in that light! I shall always see
you as you are to-night."

A silence. Excitement mounted in their veins. Suddenly he stooped and
kissed her hands. They looked into each other's eyes, and the seconds
passed like hours.

Presently, in the nearer drawing-room, there was a sound of approaching
voices and they moved apart.

"Julie, Emily Lawrence is going," said the Duchess's voice, pitched in
what seemed to Julie a strange and haughty note. "Captain Warkworth,
Miss Lawrence thinks that you and she have common friends--Lady Blanche
Moffatt and her daughter."

Captain Warkworth murmured some conventionality, and passed into the
next drawing-room with Miss Lawrence.

Julie rose to her feet, the color dying out of her face, her passionate
eyes on the Duchess, who stood facing her friend, guiltily pale, and
ready to cry.

XIV

On the morning following these events, Warkworth went down to the Isle
of Wight to see his mother. On the journey he thought much of Julie.
They had parted awkwardly the night before. The evening, which had
promised so well, had, after all, lacked finish and point. What on earth
had that tiresome Miss Lawrence wanted with him? They had talked of
Simla and the Moffatts. The conversation had gone in spurts, she looking
at him every now and then with eyes that seemed to say more than her
words. All that she had actually said was perfectly insignificant and
trivial. Yet there was something curious in her manner, and when the
time came for him to take his departure she had bade him a frosty
little farewell.

She had described herself once or twice as a _great_ friend of Lady
Blanche Moffatt. Was