it. But isn't there anything difficult
you want to do?"

"Yes," said Edmund, "there are two things; one is plainly impossible,
and the other is not hopeful, and neither of them prevents my feeling
bored, for unfortunately neither of them gives me enough to do."

"Couldn't you work more at them?" asked Molly, with much sympathy.

"No," he said, as if talking to himself, "no one has the power to make a
woman change her nature, and the other matter needs an expert. Good
Heavens!" he stopped short, in astonishment at himself.

"Why, what's the matter?" asked Molly, while a deep flush of colour rose
in her dark cheeks.

"You must be a witch," he said lightly; "you make me say things I don't
in the least mean to say, and that I have never said to anyone else. And
here is a distracted partner, Edgar Tonmore, coming to reproach you."

"Our dance is nearly over, Miss Dexter," said a young, fresh voice, and
a most pleasing specimen of well-built and well-trained manhood stood
before them. "I have been looking for you everywhere."

Molly and Edmund rose.

He stood where they left him watching her whirl
past. It was as he had suspected; she had the gift of perfect movement.

And Molly, as she danced past, glanced towards the tall, loose figure,
dignified with all its carelessness and with some curious trick of
distinction and indifference in its bearing, and twice she caught tired
eyes looking very earnestly at her.

"Good Heavens! I was talking of Rose to that girl, and of my efforts to
get at her mother's money, and I never speak of either to mortal man.
What made me do it?"

Slowly he turned away and left the ballroom and the house, declining
with a wave of the hand various appeals to stay, and found himself in
the street.

"Sympathies and affinities be hanged!" He said it aloud. "She isn't even
really beautiful, and I'll be hanged, too, if I'll talk to her any
more."

But, alack for Molly, he did talk to her on almost every occasion on
which they met. It was from no conscious lack of royalty to Rose; it was
largely because he was so full of her and her affairs that he would in
an assembly of indifferent people drift towards one who was in any way
connected with those affairs. Then one word or two, the merest "how d'ye
do?" seemed to develop instantly into talk, and shortly the talk turned
to intimate things. And for him Molly was always at her best. Many
people did not like her, yet admired her, and admitted he