ir momentary privacy, and catching her to him
laid a fugitive pressure on her lips. To counteract the audacity of
this proceeding he led her to a bamboo sofa in a less secluded part of
the conservatory, and sitting down beside her broke a
lily-of-the-valley from her bouquet. She sat silent, and the world lay
like a sunlit valley at their feet.

"Did you tell my cousin Ellen?" she asked presently, as if she spoke
through a dream.

He roused himself, and remembered that he had not done so. Some
invincible repugnance to speak of such things to the strange foreign
woman had checked the words on his lips.

"No--I hadn't the chance after all," he said, fibbing hastily.

"Ah." She looked disappointed, but gently resolved on gaining her
point. "You must, then, for I didn't either; and I shouldn't like her
to think--"

"Of course not. But aren't you, after all, the person to do it?"

She pondered on this. "If I'd done it at the right time, yes: but now
that there's been a delay I think you must explain that I'd asked you
to tell her at the Opera, before our speaking about it to everybody
here. Otherwise she might think I had forgotten her. You see, she's
one of the family, and she's been away so long that she's
rather--sensitive."

Archer looked at her glowingly. "Dear and great angel! Of course I'll
tell her." He glanced a trifle apprehensively toward the crowded
ball-room. "But I haven't seen her yet. Has she come?"

"No; at the last minute she decided not to."

"At the last minute?" he echoed, betraying his surprise that she should
ever have considered the alternative possible.

"Yes. She's awfully fond of dancing," the young girl answered simply.
"But suddenly she made up her mind that her dress wasn't smart enough
for a ball, though we thought it so lovely; and so my aunt had to take
her home."

"Oh, well--" said Archer with happy indifference. Nothing about his
betrothed pleased him more than her resolute determination to carry to
its utmost limit that ritual of ignoring the "unpleasant" in which they
had both been brought up.

"She knows as well as I do," he reflected, "the real reason of her
cousin's staying away; but I shall never let her see by the least sign
that I am conscious of there being a shadow of a shade on poor Ellen
Olenska's reputation."

IV.

In the course of the next day the first of the usual betrothal visits
were exchanged. The New York ritual was precise and infl