instead of having been ignominiously incarcerated
for the last two hours. "The very moment you open the door, I shall go
down-stairs and tell him everything."

"Then I won't let you out," says Portia, feebly, because she knows that
soon dinner will come, and then she _must_ let her out willy-nilly.

"I didn't ask you," says the rebel. "Dress yourself now, I would advise
you, and go down to dinner. I hope you will enjoy it. When they make
inquiries about my non-appearance, I should think you will have to
explain it later on."

"Come out," says Portia, with a sigh of utter weariness; and then she
opens the door and the incarcerated one steps forth, and sails past her
with the air of a haughty queen, and with an unlowered crest.

Miss Vibart is vanquished. Even to her own soul she confesses so much.
Dulce, passing her in dignified silence, goes toward the bedroom that
opens off the boudoir, where they have been carrying on this most civil
(or rather _un_civil) war, and entering it, closes the door, and fastens
it with unmistakable firmness behind her.

Conquered and subdued, and sick at heart, Portia traverses the corridor
that divides her room from Dulce's, and prepares with languid interest
to make her dinner toilette.

CHAPTER XIX.

"We must live our lives, though the sun be set,
Must meet in the masque, where parts we play,
Must cross in the maze of Life's minuet;
Our yea is yea, and our nay is nay:
But while snows of Winter or flowers of May,
Are the sad years' shroud or coronet,
In the season of rose or of violet,
I shall never forget till my dying day!"
--A. LANG.

DINNER to-night, so far as Dulce and Portia are concerned, is gone
through in utter silence. Not a word escapes either. To Portia, even to
say yes or no to the butler, is a wearying of the flesh; to Dulce, it is
an open annoyance. Their positive determination to enter into no
conversation might have been observed sooner or later by somebody, but
for Dicky Browne. He talks for everybody, and is, indeed, in such a
genial mood, that their unusual silence passes unnoticed.

Fabian, too, for a wonder, has risen above his usual taciturnity and is
almost talkative. A change so delightful to Sir Christopher, that he, in
his turn, brightens up, and grows more festive than he has been for many
a day. In fact, for