saying, Madame, with a fan outstretched before her like a palm-leaf,
moved towards the door; but Cynthia intercepted her.

"Madame, do not go!" she cried. "Indeed I am sorry! Do not make Mr.
Lepel think that I have been behaving so like a petted child. I will do
what you wish henceforward--I will indeed! Do not go, or I shall think
that you are angry with me!"

"Angry with you, _carissima_? Not one bit!" said Madame, touching the
girl's hot cheek with the end of her dainty fan. "Not angry, only a
little--little tiny bit disappointed! But what of that? I forgive you!
Genius must have its moods, its freaks, its passions. But calm yourself
now, for Heaven's sake, or we shall be in bad voice to-night! I am just
going to my room to get my scent-bottle; I will return immediately;" and
Madame escaped.

Hubert was delighted with the little lady's manoeuvre, designed, as he
knew, to leave him alone with Cynthia. As for Cynthia, she gave one
scared look round, as if she dreaded to meet his eyes, then dropped into
the nearest chair and placed one hand over her face. He thought that she
was crying.

"Cynthia, my darling, what is all this?" he said approaching her. "My
dearest, you are not happy! What can I do?"

"Nothing," she answered, dashing away a tear and letting her hand fall
into her lap--"nothing indeed!"

"But you are not--as Madame says--quite like yourself."

"I know; I am very cross and disagreeable," said Cynthia, with a
resolute assumption of gaiety. "I always had a bad temper; and it is
well perhaps that you should find it out."

Without speaking, he bent his head to kiss her; but she drew back.

"No!" she said, with decision. "No, Hubert--Mr. Lepel, I mean--that will
not do!"

"What, Cynthia?"

"We are not engaged. We are really nothing to each other; I was wrong to
forget that before."

"This is surely a new view on the subject, Cynthia!"

"Yes; it is the view I have taken ever since I thought it over. We will
be friends, if you like--I will always be your friend"--and there came
over her face an indescribable expression of yearning and passionate
regret--"but we must remember that I shall be nothing more."

"Nothing more? Why, my darling, do you forget what you promised me--that
at the end of two years----"

"If you were free--yes," she interrupted him. "But it was a foolish
promise. You know that you are not likely to be free. You--you knew that
when you told me that you loved me!" She set her