p very straight, and forgetting to wave her fan.

"Not exactly," says Dulce, meditatively; "I really don't think I hate
him, but he can be disagreeable, I promise you."

"But if you marry him, hardly tolerating him, and afterwards you meet
somebody you can love, how will it be with you then?"

"Oh, I shan't do that," she says; "I have felt so married to Roger for
years, that it would be positively indecent of me, even _now_, to fall
in love with any one. In fact I couldn't."

"I daresay, after all, you like him well enough," says Miss Vibart, with
her low, soft laugh. "Mark Gore says you are exactly suited to each
other."

"Mark Gore is a confirmed old bachelor, and knows nothing," says Dulce,
contemptuously.

"Yet once, they say, he was hopelessly in love with Phyllis Carrington."

"So he was. It was quite a romance, and he was the hero."

"Phyllis is quite everything she ought to be, and utterly sweet," says
Portia, thoughtfully. "But _is_ she the sort of person to create a
_grande passion_ in a man like Mark?"

"I daresay. Her eyes are lovely; so babyish, yet so full of latent
coquetry. A man of the world, like Mark, would like that sort of thing.
But it is all over now, quite a worn-out tale. He visits there at stated
times, and she has thoughts only for her baby and her 'Duke,' as she
calls her husband."

"I wonder," says Miss Vibart, with a faint yawn, "if at times she
doesn't find that a trifle slow?"

Then she grows a little ashamed of herself, as she catches Dulce's
quick, puzzled glance.

"It is a very pretty baby," says Dulce, as though anxious to explain
matters.

"And what can be more adorable than a pretty baby?" responds her cousin,
with a charming smile. "Now do tell me"--quickly, and as though to
change the current of her companion's thoughts--"how many people are in
this house, and who they are, and everything that is bad and good about
them."

Dulce laughs.

"We come and go," she says. "It would be hard to arrange us. _I_ am
always here, and Uncle Christopher, and--Fabian. Roger calls this his
home, too, but sometimes he goes away for awhile, and Dicky's room is
always kept for him. We are all cousins pretty nearly, and there is one
peculiarity--I mean, Uncle Christopher makes no one welcome who does not
believe--in--Fabian."

Her voice falls slightly as she makes the last remark, and she turns her
head aside, and, leaning over the balcony, plays absently with a rosebud
that is g