irst taken to Brighton, where the half of an hotel had been hired,
and had then been brought to Grosvenor Square, and at once thrown into
the matrimonial market. No part of her life had been more
disagreeable to her, more frightful, than the first months in which
she had been trafficked for by the Nidderdales and Grassloughs. She
had been too frightened, too much of a coward to object to anything
proposed to her, but still had been conscious of a desire to have some
hand in her own future destiny. Luckily for her, the first attempts at
trafficking with the Nidderdales and Grassloughs had come to nothing;
and at length she was picking up a little courage, and was beginning
to feel that it might be possible to prevent a disposition of herself
which did not suit her own tastes. She was also beginning to think
that there might be a disposition of herself which would suit her own
tastes.

Felix Carbury was standing leaning against a wall, and she was seated
on a chair close to him. 'I love you better than anyone in the world,'
he said, speaking plainly enough for her to hear, perhaps indifferent
as to the hearing of others.

'Oh, Sir Felix, pray do not talk like that.'

'You knew that before. Now I want you to say whether you will be my
wife.'

'How can I answer that myself? Papa settles everything.'

'May I go to papa?'

'You may if you like,' she replied in a very low whisper. It was thus
that the greatest heiress of the day, the greatest heiress of any day
if people spoke truly, gave herself away to a man without a penny.

CHAPTER XII - SIR FELIX IN HIS MOTHER'S HOUSE

When all her friends were gone Lady Carbury looked about for her son,--
not expecting to find him, for she knew how punctual was his nightly
attendance at the Beargarden, but still with some faint hope that he
might have remained on this special occasion to tell her of his
fortune. She had watched the whispering, had noticed the cool
effrontery with which Felix had spoken,--for without hearing the words
she had almost known the very moment in which he was asking,--and had
seen the girl's timid face, and eyes turned to the ground, and the
nervous twitching of her hands as she replied. As a woman,
understanding such things, who had herself been wooed, who had at
least dreamed of love, she had greatly disapproved her son's manner.
But yet, if it might be successful, if the girl would put up with
love-making so slight as that, and if the great