d her?"

He asked as much of Sabina the moment La Cordifiamma had retired.

"Are you not going to Lady M---- 's, too?"

"No; that is, I won't go yet; not till you have explained all this to
me."

"Explained what?" asked Sabina, looking as demure as a little brown
mouse.

"Why, what did you ask me here for?"

"Lord Scoutbush should recollect that he asked himself."

"You cruel venomous creature! do you think I would have come, if I had
known that I was to see another man making love to her before my very
eyes? I could kill the fellow;--who is he?"

"A New York merchant, unworthy of your aristocratic powder and ball."

"The confounded Yankee!" muttered Scoutbush.

"If people swear in my house, I fine them a dozen of kid gloves. Did
you not promise me that you would not make love to her yourself?"

"Well--but, it is too cruel of you, before my very eyes."

"I saw no love-making to-night."

"None? Were you blind?"

"Not in the least; but you cannot well see a thing making which has
been made long ago."

"What! Is he her husband?"

"No."

"Engaged to her?"

"No."

"What then!"

"Don't you know already that this is a house of mystery, full of
mysterious people? I tell you this only, that if she ever marries any
one, she will marry him; and that if I can, I will make her."

"Then you are my enemy after all."

"I! Do you think that Sabina Mellot can see a young viscount loose
upon the universe, without trying to make up a match for him? No; I
have such a prize for you,--young, handsome, better educated than any
woman whom you will meet to-night. True, she is a Manchester girl: but
then she has eighty thousand pounds."

"Eighty thousand nonsense? I'd sooner have that divine creature
without a penny, than--"

"And would my lord viscount so far debase himself as to marry an
actress?"

"Humph! Faith, my grandmother was an actress; and we St. Justs are
none the worse for that fact, as far as I can see,--and certainly none
the uglier--the women at least. Oh Sabina--Mrs. Mellot, I mean--only
help me this once!"

"This once? Do you intend to marry by my assistance this time, and by
your own the next? How many viscountesses are there to be?"

"Don't laugh at me, you cruel woman: you don't know; you fancy that
I am not in love--" and the poor fellow began pouring out these
commonplaces, which one has heard too often to take the trouble of
repeating, and yet which are real enough, and pathetic too; fo