came over her. She grew more silent.

A lady beyond the Prince spoke to him, and at that moment Mr.
Hoggenwater rose to put down her coffee-cup, and in this second of
loneliness a deep voice said in her ear:

"I could not go--I wanted to say good-night to you!"

Then Theodora experienced a new emotion; she could not have told herself
what it was, but suddenly a gladness spread through her spirit; the
moon looked more softly bright, and her sweet eyes dilated and glowed,
while that voice, gentle as a dove's, trembled a little as she said:

"Lord Bracondale! Oh, you startled me!"

He drew a chair and sat down behind her.

"How shall we get rid of your Hogginheimer millionaire?" he whispered.
"I feel as if I wanted to kill every one who speaks to you to-night."

The half light, the moon, Paris, and the spring-time! Theodora spent the
next hour in a dream--a dream of bliss.

Mrs. McBride, with her all-seeing eye, perceived the turn events had
taken. She was full of enjoyment herself; she had quite--almost
quite--decided to listen to the addresses of Captain Fitzgerald,
therefore her heart, not her common-sense, was uppermost this night.

It could not hurt Theodora to have one evening of agreeable
conversation, and it would do Herryman Hoggenwater a great deal of good
to be obstacled; thus she expressed it to herself. That last success
with Princess Waldersheim had turned his empty head. So she called him
and planted him in a safe place by an American girl, who would know how
to keep him, and then turned to her own affairs again.

The Prince was a man of the world, and understood life. So Theodora and
Lord Bracondale were left in peace.

The latter soon moved his chair to a position where he could see her
face, rather behind her still, which entailed a slightly leaning over
attitude. They were beyond the radius of the lights in the _bosquet_.

Lord Bracondale was perfectly conversant with all moves in the game; he
knew how to talk to a woman so that she alone could feel the strength of
his devotion, while his demeanor to the world seemed the least
compromising.

Theodora had not spoken for a moment after his first speech. It made her
heart beat too fast.

"I have been watching you all through dinner," he continued, with only a
little pause. "You look immensely beautiful to-night, and those two told
you so, I suppose."

"Perhaps they did!" she said. This was her first gentle essay at
fencing. She would try