"I hope he will," says Joyce, looking after him.

"I hope so too--and in a favorable temper."

"You're a cynic, Dicky, under all that airy manner of yours," says Miss
Kavanagh severely. "Come out to the gardens, the air may cool your
brain, and reduce you to milder judgments."

"Of Lady Baltimore?"

"Yes."

"Truly I do seem to be sitting in judgment on her and her family."

"Her _family_! What has Bertie done?"

"Oh, there is more family than Bertie," says Mr. Browne. "She has a
brother, hasn't she?"

* * * * *

Meantime Lord Baltimore, taking Joyce's hint, makes his way to the
library, to find his wife there lying back in a huge arm-chair. She is
looking a little pale. A little _ennuyee_; it is plain that she has
sought this room--one too public to be in much request--with a view to
getting away for a little while from the noise and heat of the ballroom.

"Not dancing?" says her husband, standing well away from her. She had
sprung into a sitting posture the moment she saw him, an action that has
angered Baltimore. His tone is uncivil; his remark, it must be
confessed, superfluous. _Why_ does she persist in treating him as a
stranger? Surely, on whatever bad terms they may be, she need not feel
it necessary to make herself uncomfortable on his appearance. She has
evidently been enjoying that stolen lounge, and _now_----

The lamplight is streaming full upon her face. A faint color has crept
into it. The white velvet gown she is wearing is hardly whiter than her
neck and arms, and her eyes are as bright as her diamonds; yet there is
no feature in her face that could be called strictly handsome. This,
Baltimore tells himself, staring at her as he is, in a sort of insolent
defiance of the cold glance she has directed at him. No; there is no
beauty about that face; distinctly bred, calm and pure, it might
possibly be called charming by those who liked her, but nothing more.
She is not half so handsome as--as--any amount of other women he knows,
and yet----

It increases his anger towards her tenfold to know that in her secret
soul she has the one face that to _him_ is beautiful, and ever _will_ be
beautiful.

"You see," says she gently, and with an expressive gesture, "I longed
for a moment's pause, so I came here. Do they want me?" She rises from
her seat, looking very tall and graceful. If her face is not strictly
lovely, there is, at all events, no lack of loveliness in he