ord Rockminster to pay his respects to her and leave him with her;
won't that do! They have already been introduced at the theatre; and if
Rockminster doesn't say much, I have no doubt she will chatter enough
for both. And Miss Burgoyne will be quite pleased to have a lord all to
herself."

"Leo," said Nina, gently, "do you not think you yourself have too much
liking for--for that fine company?"

"Perhaps I have," said he, with perfect good-humor. "What then? Are you
going to lecture me, too? Is Saul among the prophets? Has Maurice Mangan
been coaching you as well?"

"Ah, Leo," said she, "I should wish to see you give it all up--yes--all
the popularity--and your fine company--and that you go away back to
Pandiani--"

"Pandiani!" he exclaimed. "Here's romance, indeed! You want us both to
become students again, and to have the old days at Naples back again--"

"No, no, no!" she said, shaking her head. "It is the future I think of.
I wish to hear you in grand opera or in oratorio--I wish to see you a
great artist--that is something noble, something ambitious, something to
work for day and night. Ah, Leo, when I hear Mr. Santley sing 'Why do
the nations'--when I see the thousands and thousands of people sitting
entranced, then I say to myself, 'There is something grand and noble to
speak to all these people--to lift them above themselves, to give them
this pure emotion, surely that is a great thing--it is high, like
religion--it is a purification--it is--'" But here she stopped, with a
little gesture of despair. "No, no, Leo, I cannot tell you--I have not
enough English."

"It's all very well," said he, "for you to talk about Santley; but where
will you get another voice like his?"

"Leo, you can sing finer music than 'The Starry Night,'" she said. "You
have the capacity. Ah, but you enjoy too much; you are petted and
spoiled, yes? you have not a great ambition--"

"I'll tell you what I seem to have, though, Nina," said he. "I seem to
have a faculty of impressing my friends with the notion that I could do
something tremendous if only I tried; whereas I know that this belief of
theirs is only a delusion."

"But you do not try, Leo," said this persistent counsellor. "No? life is
too pleasant for you; you have not enthusiasm; why, your talk is always
_persiflage_--it is the talk of the fashionable world. And you an
artist!"

However, at this moment Lionel suddenly discovered that this leisurely
stroll was likely t