ean Lion lies in wait
somewhere," and a lost opportunity might have cost even Hercules that
tawny skin he wore as trophy.

Mr. Laurance saw a slow dumb motion of the pale lips that breathed no
sound to fill the verbal frame they mutely fashioned--"my husband;"
and then with a gradual drooping of the heavily lashed lids, the eyes
closed. Only until one might have leisurely counted five was he
permitted to scan the wan face in its rare beautiful repose, then
again her eyes pitiless as fate met his--so eager, so wistful--and
she too rose, confronting him with a cold proud smile.

"I fear Mr. Laurance unduly bemoans and magnifies a mistake, which,
whatever its baleful intent, has suffered in my rude inhospitable
hands an 'untimely nipping in the bud,' and most ingloriously failed
of consummation. After to-day the luckless incident of our
acquaintance must vanish like some farthing rushlight set upon a
breezy down to mark a hidden quicksand; for in my future panorama I
shall keep no niche for mortifying painful days like this--and you,
sir, amid the rush and glow and glitter of this bewildering French
capital, will have little leisure and less inclination to recall the
unflattering failure of an attempted flirtation with a pretty but
most utterly heartless actress, who wrung her hands, and did high
tragedy, and stormed and wept for gold! Not for perfumed pink
_billets-doux_, nor yet for adulation and vows of deathless devotion
from high-born gentlemen handsome and heartless enough to serve in _Le
Musee du Louvre_ as statues of Apollo, but for gold, Mr. Laurance,
only for gold!"

"Do not inexorably exile me--do not refuse my prayer for the
privilege of sometimes seeing you. Permit me to come here and teach
you to believe in my----"

"_Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle!_" she exclaimed, with a quick
nervous laugh that grated grievously upon his ear.

"Madame, I implore you not to deny me the delight of an occasional
interview."

A sudden pallor crept across his eager face, and he attempted to
touch the fair dimpled hand which, still grasping the locket, rested
upon the table.

Aware of his purpose, she haughtily shrank back, drew herself up, and
folding her arms so tightly over her breast that the cameo ring
pressed close upon her bounding heart, she looked down on him as from
some distant height, with an intensity of quiet scorn that no
language could adequately render, that bruised his heart like
hail-stones.

"