he smartest
Richmond girls arrive on this occasion, yet the men crowd round
Eleanor, who, elated by success, converses in a most effervescing style.

She finds herself using Giddy's expressions, stealing Giddy's ideas,
remembering her droll sayings, and repeating them second-hand.

They seem to go down, and amuse Eleanor as much as her listeners. She
has just told a smart story (rather too smart for the occasion), when
her glance falls on a man in the doorway. He is looking straight
across at her with strangely magnetic eyes. He is tall, slim,
handsome. She stops speaking. The stranger awakes a new interest; she
forgets the others, she wants him.

He seeks out the youngest Miss Hillier, and asks for an introduction.

"Mrs. Roche--Mr. Quinton."

Two magic words make them friends. He takes the seat of honour by her
side, monopolises the conversation, and eventually disperses her
admiring circle.

Eleanor is glad. She is fascinated by the profound interest he
displays when she speaks of herself. Besides, from what he tells her
she gathers he is a man of genius, destroyed by pessimism, given to
analyse human hearts and discover their misery, to look deeply into the
lives of his fellow creatures, below the platitudes and
conventionalities. He is richly endowed with the divine gift of
sympathy, the supreme art of discrimination, yet occasionally reveals
the witty spirits of the cynic, who is cynical to please.

He sees through Eleanor's society prattle, the guileless mind, the
childish innocence. He recognises that as yet she is undeveloped--he
mentally reviews her. She is absurd, improbable, and therefore
fascinating. She is like a book with the best chapters torn out--you
long to find them, and never rest till you succeed.

Palmists or clairvoyants would prophesy a future for her, simply
through looking in her eyes; but whether notoriety is to be won by
downfalling or uprising were better left unstated. Eleanor, he
decides, is neither highly-strung nor excitable, but outspoken, fresh,
and conscious of her beauty, without conceit. He thinks he loves her
at first sight, the lukewarm love arising from admiration, which a man
may feel towards a married woman, without blame, but at the close of
the evening he is certain of it.

"What have we been talking about all to-night?" asks Eleanor, with a
puzzled frown, and a smile which counteracts it. "So much was
frivolous and foolish I cannot remember."

"Y