en them; but still they were next to each
other, and they felt embarrassed, for they felt alone.

"Do you never play?" asked Madame de Ventadour, after a pause.

"I _have_ played," said Maltravers, "and I know the temptation. I dare
not play now. I love the excitement, but I have been humbled at the
debasement: it is a moral drunkenness that is worse than the physical."

"You speak warmly."

"Because I feel keenly. I once won of a man I respected, who was poor.
His agony was a dreadful lesson to me. I went home, and was terrified to
think I had felt so much pleasure in the pain of another. I have never
played since that night."

"So young and so resolute!" said Valerie, with admiration in her voice
and eyes; "you are a strange person. Others would have been cured by
losing, you were cured by winning. It is a fine thing to have principle
at your age, Mr. Maltravers."

"I fear it was rather pride than principle," said Maltravers. "Error is
sometimes sweet; but there is no anguish like an error of which we feel
ashamed. I cannot submit to blush for myself."

"Ah!" muttered Valerie; "this is the echo of my own heart!" She rose
and went to the window. Maltravers paused a moment, and followed her.
Perhaps he half thought there was an invitation in the movement.

There lay before them the still street, with its feeble and unfrequent
lights; beyond, a few stars, struggling through an atmosphere unusually
clouded, brought the murmuring ocean partially into sight. Valerie
leaned against the wall, and the draperies of the window veiled her from
all the guests, save Maltravers; and between her and himself was a large
marble vase filled with flowers; and by that uncertain light Valerie's
brilliant cheek looked pale, and soft, and thoughtful. Maltravers never
before felt so much in love with the beautiful Frenchwoman.

"Ah, madam!" said he, softly; "there is one error, if it be so, that
never can cost me shame."

"Indeed!" said Valerie with an unaffected start, for she was not aware
he was so near her. As she spoke she began plucking (it is a common
woman's trick) the flowers from the vase between her and Ernest. That
small, delicate, almost transparent hand!--Maltravers gazed upon the
hand, then on the countenance, then on the hand again. The scene swam
before him, and, involuntarily and as by an irresistible impulse, the
next moment that hand was in his own.

"Pardon me--pardon me," said he, falteringly; "but that error