rybody there. I
felt myself to be desperate,--mad, like a wild woman. There I was,
going round and round and round with the only man for whom I ever
cared two straws. It seemed as though everything had been a dream
since the old days. Ah! how well I remember the first time I danced
with him,--at his aunt's house in Cavendish Square. They had only
just brought me out in London then, and I thought that he was a god."

"Cora! I cannot bear to hear you talk like that."

"I know well enough that he is no god now; some people say that he is
a devil, but he was like Apollo to me then. Did you ever see anyone
so beautiful as he is?"

"I never saw him at all."

"I wish you could have seen him; but you will some day. I don't know
whether you care for men being handsome." Alice thought of John Grey,
who was the handsomest man that she knew, but she made no answer.
"I do; or, rather, I used to do," continued Lady Glencora. "I don't
think I care much about anything now; but I don't see why handsome
men should not be run after as much as handsome women."

"But you wouldn't have a girl run after any man, would you; whether
handsome or ugly?"

"But they do, you know. When I saw him the other night he was just as
handsome as ever;--the same look, half wild and half tame, like an
animal you cannot catch, but which you think would love you so if you
could catch him. In a little while it was just like the old time, and
I had made up my mind to care nothing for the people looking at me."

"And you think that was right?"

"No, I don't. Yes, I do; that is. It wasn't right to care about
dancing with him, but it was right to disregard all the people gaping
round. What was it to them? Why should they care who I danced with?"

"That is nonsense, dear, and you must know that it is so. If you were
to see a woman misbehaving herself in public, would not you look on
and make your comments? Could you help doing so if you were to try?"

"You are very severe, Alice. Misbehaving in public!"

"Yes, Cora. I am only taking your own story. According to that, you
were misbehaving in public."

Lady Glencora got up from her chair near the window, on which she had
been crouching close to Alice's knees, and walked away towards the
fireplace. "What am I to say to you, or how am I to talk to you?"
said Alice. "You would not have me tell you a lie?"

"Of all things in the world, I hate a prude the most," said Lady
Glencora.

"Cora, look here. If yo