.

Usk stares at her. "Well, if you knew it, you rode a dark horse, then,
when you asked her here?"

"Your expressions are incoherent," returns his wife. "If I wished two
people to meet when both were free, who had had a certain sympathy for
each other when honor kept them apart, there is nothing very culpable in
it? What is your objection?"

"Oh, Lord, I've no objection: I don't care a straw," says her lord, with
a very moody expression. "But Brandolin will, I suspect: she's certainly
encouraged him. I think you might have shown us your cards."

"Lord Brandolin is certainly old enough to take care of himself in
affairs of the heart, and experienced enough, too, if one is to believe
all one hears," replies his wife. "What can he care, either, for a
person he has known a few days? Whereas the attachment of Gervase to her
is of very long date and most romantic origin. He has loved her
hopelessly for eight years."

Usk gives a grim guffaw. "The constancy has had many interludes, I
suspect! Now I see why you took such a craze for the lady; but you might
have said what you were after to me, at any rate. I could have hinted to
Brandolin how the land lay, and he wouldn't have walked with his eyes
shut into her net."

"Her 'net'? She is as cold as ice to him!" replies his wife, with
disgust; "and, were she otherwise, the loves of your friend are soon
consoled. He writes a letter, takes a voyage, and throws his memories
overboard. Alan's temperament is far more serious."

"If by serious you mean selfish, I agree with you. There isn't such
another d----d egotist anywhere under the sun." And, much out of temper,
Usk flings himself out of the room and goes to Lady Waverley, who is
lying on a sofa in the small library. She has a headache, but her smile
is sweet, her hand cool, her atmosphere soothing and delightful, with
the blinds down and an odor of attar of roses.

If any one were to tell Dolly Usk that she had been making up fibs on
this occasion, she would be mortally offended and surprised. She would
reply that she had only been _brodant un peu_,--putting the thing as it
ought to be put, as it must be put, if Gervase is to obtain the hand of
Xenia Sabaroff, and if nobody is to know anything which ought not to be
known. Indeed, she has pondered so much on this manner of putting it,
that she has almost ended in believing that her version of the story is
the true one.

"Brandolin's feelings, indeed!" she thinks, with g