ell and rested on the sheeny damask
beneath. He glanced at her keenly an instant, then handed her his cup,
saying,--

"May I trouble you?"

She looked up again, a smile breaking over the face wanner than
youth, but which the hour's gayety had flushed to a forgetfulness of
intervening years, extended her left hand for the cup, still gazing and
smiling.

Various resolves had flitted through Marguerite's mind since her
entrance. One, that she would yet make Mr. Raleigh feel her power,
yielded to shame and self-contempt, and she despised herself for a woman
won unwooed. But she was not sure that she was won. Perhaps, after all,
she did not care particularly for Mr. Raleigh. He was much older than
she; he was quite grave, sometimes satirical; she knew nothing about
him; she was slightly afraid of him. On the whole, if she consulted her
taste, she would have preferred a younger hero; she would rather be the
Fornarina for a Raffaello; she had fancied her name sweetening the songs
of Giraud Riquier, the last of the Troubadours; and she did not believe
Beatrice Portinari to be so excellent among women, so different from
other girls, that her name should have soared so far aloft with that
escutcheon of the golden wing on a field azure. "But they say that there
cannot be two epic periods in a nation's literature," thought Marguerite
hurriedly; "so that a man who might have been Homer once will be nothing
but a gentleman now." And at this point, having decided that Mr. Raleigh
was fully worth unlimited love, she added to her resolves a desire for
content with whatever amount of friendly affection he chose to bestow
upon her. And all this, while sifting the sugar over her raspberries.
Nevertheless, she felt, in the midst of her heroic content, a strange
jealousy at hearing the two thus discuss days in which she had no share,
and she watched them furtively, with a sharp, hateful suspicion dawning
in her mind. Now, as Mrs. Purcell's eyes met Mr. Raleigh's, and her hand
was still extended for the cup, Marguerite fastened her glance on its
glittering ring, and said abruptly,--

"Mrs. Purcell, have you a husband?"

Mrs. Purcell started and withdrew her hand, as if it had received a
blow, just as Mr. Raleigh relinquished the cup, so that between them the
bits of pictured porcelain fell and splintered over the equipage.

"Naughty child!" said Mrs. Purcell. "See now what you've done!"

"What have I to do with it?"

"Then you haven