looked at him with her sweet kind eyes. "It _is_ true that you are
going to be married?"

"Quite true."

"I was so glad to hear that, too."

"Thanks." There was a slight spasm in his throat. That thick difficult
word stuck in it and choked him for the moment.

"I hope I shall meet your wife some day."

"You have met her." Lucia looked puzzled and he smiled, a little sadly
for a bridegroom. "You sat next her at dinner. She's here somewhere."

Lucia turned her head to where Flossie was sitting by a table, sitting
very upright, with her little air of strained propriety.

"Is it--is it that pretty lady? Do you think I might go up and speak
to her? I would so like to know her."

"I'll bring her to you. There's rather a crowd just now in the other
room."

He went to her, hardly knowing how he went.

"Flossie," he said, "I want to introduce you to Miss Harden."

Flossie's eyes brightened with surprise and pleasure; for she had
learnt from Mrs. Downey that the visitor was the daughter of Sir
Frederick Harden; and Lucia's distinction subdued her from afar.
Keith, being aware of nothing but Lucia, failed to perceive, as he
otherwise might have done, that he had risen in Flossie's opinion by
his evident intimacy with Miss Harden. She came blushing and smiling
and a little awkward, steered by Keith. But for all her awkwardness
she had never looked prettier than at that moment of her approach.

If Keith had wanted to know precisely where he stood in the order of
Lucia's intimacies, he might have learnt it from her reception of Miss
Walker. By it he might have measured, too, the height of her belief in
him, the depth of her ignorance. She who had divined him was ready to
take his unknown betrothed on trust; to credit her, not with vast
intellect, perhaps (what did that matter?), but certainly with some
rare and lovely quality of soul. He loved her; that was enough. Lucia
deduced the quality from the love, not the love from the quality. His
pretty lady must be lovable since he loved her. He had noticed long
ago that Lucia's face had a way of growing more beautiful in the act
of admiration; as if it actually absorbed the loveliness it loved to
look upon. And now, as she made a place for Flossie at her side, it
wore that look of wonder, ardent yet restrained, that look of shy and
tentative delight with which five years ago she had approached his
_Helen_. It was as if she had said to herself, "He always brought his
best t