uch as one feels for a means of conquest.

Now it was different. Her breast rose suddenly and fell to the
excitement of a subtly powerful emotion. This beauty had a new value. It
might be a prize worth surrendering proudly and as a gift to a man of
her choosing. If this rainbow of promised love proved real she would
wish herself even lovelier--for his pleasure. It was of course too soon
to feel sure--and at that thought a sudden gasp of fear rose in her
throat. At all events it was not too early to hope that the night had
brought her the thing for which she had yearned--brought the
commencement. She gave to the face in the mirror a friendly smile. "This
afternoon I rather hated you," she announced gravely. "I gazed at you
and a soulless little pig stared back ... but who knows? Maybe down
under your vanity and selfishness you have after all the cobwebbed
little germ of a soul. If so we must dig it out and brush it off and put
it to work."

Then she turned out the lights and sank down dreamily in the broad
window seat. The moon rode high and bathed the hills in its limpid yet
elusive wash of silver and blue and dove grays. Far off like a
brush-stroke from a dream palette ran the horizon's margin of hills and
nearer at hand tapering poplars stood up like dark sentinels. The lights
and music told of the dance still in progress and strolling figures
occasionally crossed the silver patches between the shadows.

In her own mind she was reviewing all the men who with her had sought to
throw off the mantle of the Platonic and invest themselves in the more
romantic habiliments of courtship. One lesson had been taught her from
the first, and she had learned it thoroughly--too thoroughly! She was no
ordinary girl to give way to unwise throbbing of the pulses. Her future
must run side by side with brilliant things and brilliant men.

It takes experience to teach distrust to those frolicsome playmates,
Youth and Buoyancy. She had met with that experience and had learned
that fortune-hunters are by no means mythical or extinct. When to the
honey-pot of wealth is added the lure of beauty, how can one be sure
that any proffered love is free from the taint of greed? Her brother was
one of America's most brilliant money-getters. He gathered in and
disbursed with a lavish magnificence. She had been called the most
beautiful woman in Europe and her gem-like brilliancy had been set in
Life's gold and platinum of environment. When Cupid c