alk here," she said. "Can't we go out? I am melted!"

"Yes, of course! Come on to the terrace. It's a divine evening, and we
shall find our party there. Well, Miss Craven, were you interested?"

Edith smiled demurely.

"I thought it a good debate," she said.

"Confound these Venturist prigs!" was Wharton's inward remark as he led
the way.

CHAPTER IX.

"How enchanting!" cried Marcella, as they emerged on the terrace, and
river, shore, and sky opened upon them in all the thousand-tinted light
and shade of a still and perfect evening. "Oh, how hot we were--and how
badly you treat us in those dens!"

Those confident eyes of Wharton's shone as they glanced at her.

She wore a pretty white dress of some cotton stuff--it seemed to him he
remembered it of old--and on the waving masses of hair lay a little
bunch of black lace that called itself a bonnet, with black strings tied
demurely under the chin. The abundance of character and dignity in the
beauty which yet to-night was so young and glowing--the rich arresting
note of the voice--the inimitable carriage of the head--Wharton realised
them all at the moment with peculiar vividness, because he felt them in
some sort as additions to his own personal wealth. To-night she was in
his power, his possession.

The terrace was full of people, and alive with a Babel of talk. Yet, as
he carried his companions forward in search of Mrs. Lane, he saw that
Marcella was instantly marked. Every one who passed them, or made way
for them, looked and looked again.

The girl, absorbed in her pleasant or agitating impressions, knew
nothing of her own effect. She was drinking in the sunset light--the
poetic mystery of the river--the lovely line of the bridge--the
associations of the place where she stood, of this great building
overshadowing her. Every now and then she started in a kind of terror
lest some figure in the dusk should be Aldous Raeburn; then when a
stranger showed himself she gave herself up again to her young pleasure
in the crowd and the spectacle. But Wharton knew that she was observed;
Wharton caught the whisper that followed her. His vanity, already so
well-fed this evening, took the attention given to her as so much fresh
homage to itself; and she had more and more glamour for him in the
reflected light of this publicity, this common judgment.

"Ah, here are the Lanes!" he said, detecting at last a short lady in
black amid a group of men.

Marcella and E