Everard does not go abroad. He hears the cheers of the tenantry assembled to greet the bride and bridegroom as they sweep past his gate to the park, and scarcely winces. He hunts almost daily, and appears in society just as usual; but he does not meet Lady Saunderson, half to his relief, half to his disappointment, for the county has decreed that for some time at least her ladyship is to reside in Coventry.

Her escapade has followed that of her sister too quickly for even the most forward sycophant to overlook it; and so day after day the bride sits waiting in her beautiful drawing-room for the visitors that do not come, vowing vengeance silently, determined to give back slight for slight, snub for snub, while her husband, scowling, wanders through the still stately house to which he is for a few weeks confined with a sharp attack of rheumatism.

The officers of the Kelvick garrison give a large ball toward the middle of February, to which every one is invited. Everard dutifully puts in an appearance, though he is half dead with fatigue after a heavy day's hunting. He throws himself into an easy-chair in a cool corner behind a curtain, and is just dropping into a pleasant slumber, when one of his hosts, who has but lately joined the garrison, awakes him with a vehement nudge.

"I say, Everard, you know every one here; tell me who is that girl coming in at the door with the big yellow man? By Jove, she is a stunner! Who is she—eh, eh?"

Everard turns languidly, and then the blood rushes to his face, for within half a dozen yards of him stands Pauline, her dusky head erect, looking at him with eyes lustrous, calm, superbly indifferent—a look that seems to say, "Forgive me, if you like. Come to my side again. I do not want you; but I will not repel you. Come!"

He stands rooted to the spot as she passes him by, her dress brushing his knees. Her lovely face softens for a moment; she smiles half sadly, half contemptuously, as she whispers—

"Not a word, Jack? Well, perhaps you are right. Do not wear the willow, though; I am not worth it."

"Who is she—eh, Everard? Can't you speak?"

"Oh, she is a—a Lady Saunderson! I say, Archer, introduce me to that girl in pink over there, will you? Jolly-looking girl!"

His fatigue forgotten, unfelt, Everard is soon whirling quickly round the room, whispering nonsense into his partner's ear, but feeling everywhere, though he looks not directly at her again, the cold beautiful face of the woman he loves, watching him, reading the tempest of his mind.

"Very good—very good indeed, Jack; but take care not to overdo it. Take your pleasure a little more languidly; it will be much more effective," says Miss Wynyard, laying her hand encouragingly on her cousin's shoulder.

"Have you spoken to her, Florry?" he asks eagerly.

"No, I have only bowed and half smiled; but in a month or two," says Miss Wynyard frankly, "I guess our hands will meet in amity. You won't mind, will you, Jack? But you know the principle of my life has always been to make friends with the mammon of iniquity; and it is a principle that I have found to pay in the long run. How well she is looking, and how grandly she carries it off, doesn't she? I always knew there was a spice of the fiend in Pauline Lefroy. Do you know, Jack, I rather pity Sir Arthur, ill-conditioned animal that he is. He must have loved her to—"

"Loved her! Pshaw! He never meant to marry her from the beginning; he actually said so one day at the club to a fellow I know; and it was only when he found I was in possession that he appeared on the scene and took to dogging her again."

"Well, never mind, Jack; you have come out of the business capitally, with a dignity and a reserve that quite astonished me."

"Oh," says Everard candidly, "I wear well before the world! But I don't mind telling you, Flo, that I was pretty well bowled over at first, raved like the victim of a melodrama, wanted to pursue the guilty pair, brain the bridegroom, et cÆtera. Fortunately a friend of sterner stuff than I am, who had also been tried by the fire, steadied me in time, and made me acknowledge that there is not a woman living worth the sigh of an honest man; and so I dried up."

"Not a woman living?" repeats Miss Wynyard, with an earnestness very foreign to that young person's tone in a ball-room or elsewhere. "Stuff, Jack, stuff! Loose statements of that kind do not patent your good sense or your cure, let me tell you. You were born of a woman, were you not—a woman whom, as well as I can remember, you loved, reverenced, and mourned—"

"Shut up, Flo," he says roughly, his face flushing; "I won't stand preaching from you! As if—as if I would compare my mother—"

"That's just the point, dear boy, I wish to lead you to. The memory of your mother ought to save you from falling into the deep cant, the twopenny cynicism of the jilted man who labels every woman worthless because he happens to be ill-used by an ambitious flirt. No, all women are not worthless; and there are many in the world too good for you, Jack—ay, too good for men ten times better than you. I know of one who once loved a man—Jack, are you listening? I am going to tell you a most interesting story."

He turns listlessly.

"Ay, Flo? A woman you once knew of, who loved a man. And what was her history?"

"More fool she! Was he well off?"

"But, being a little lady," continues Flo, needless of the interruption, "as proud, shy, sensitive, as she was loving, she did not, Viola-wise, sit, like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief, but moved among her fellow-men with placid unconcern and a heart-whole surface, did her duties bravely, took her pleasures as gayly as any other girl of her age, and even trained herself to smile in the face of the man she loved when the dolt was chanting the praises of another woman. Her mother even did not know her secret."

"And yet she confided in you! You must have a fund of sympathy in reserve somewhere, Flo, that I could never reach."

"She never confided in me. I found it out in an unguarded moment, when she believed herself alone. The man had been twisting a bit of scented weed around his finger, and, when he left her, carelessly threw it into her lap; then she—"

"Glued it to her quivering lips, watered its limpness with her tears, et cÆtera. A very piteous tale! Flo, the question is, Was the man worth such a Spartan struggle? What was he like? Had he twelve thousand a year?"

"The man?" she repeats carelessly. "Oh, well, he wouldn't have caused me a heart-ache! He was much like other men, commonplace, selfish, yet good-natured in the main, young, fairly good-looking, and worth about three thousand a year. You know him better than I."

"Do I?"—stifling a yawn.

"Yes, for that man's father is your father's son."

"Let me see. Sisters and brother I have none, but that man's father is my father's son. That's a disputed problem, Flo; it disturbed the intellects of the Royal Nutshire for three hours at mess. The real answer is 'My son,' you know."

"You have no son, I believe."

"Then the solution is myself—eh? You mean to intimate that I am the hero of this touching minor tale. Who is Viola, pray?

"Find out."

"Not I," he says, with a short laugh. "I don't believe in her existence. Come along, Flo; we're missing a capital waltz."

They revolve in silence. When the music ceases, he leads her to a retired corner of the refreshment-room, and, while they are sipping ices, he says, with a sneaky tone of would-be indifference—

"Well, you might as well tell me who she is, Flo."

"Who is who?" she asks, turning her head aside to hide her triumphant smile. "Oh, Viola! What is the good of telling you anything about her if you believe she is a myth?"

"I should have the opportunity of proving the truth of your flattering tale."

"But why should I betray the secret she has guarded so gallantly? It is very mean and unmanly of you to try to worm it out of me, Jack."

"Why did you tell me anything about it? I gave you no opening for the anecdote," he says rather warmly.

"I told you, old boy," Miss Flo replies, laying her hand with a sisterly gesture on his shoulder, "because I like you and—and wish to do you good. I fancied that the contemplation of another's disappointment might alleviate yours, and perhaps distract your mind from—from other people," she winds up rather lamely.

"I see—I see. You're a good girl, Flo—thanks, thanks, my dear—but you must have thought me a precious fool to accept a legend of the kind as gospel, to fancy any woman nourishing a hopeless passion for a commonplace, selfish, soft-headed simpleton with an income of only three thousand a year!"

"Believe it or not as you like," she answers hotly. "What I tell you is true and the girl is here in this room—not a dozen yards from us."

He looks eagerly to right and left, and shrugs his shoulder impatiently.

"There are about forty smiling virgins within a dozen yards of me. How am I to pick out the stricken one? As you have gone so far, Florrie," he whispers coaxingly, "you might as well commit yourself altogether."

"Well, Jack," she answers, with well-feigned reluctance, "whatever your faults may be, you are a gentleman, and—and, if I do you'll take no advantage, or betray—"

"Of course not. What do you take me for?"

"The girl is Cicely Deane."

"Cicely Deane!" he echoes, with an incredulous laugh. "Well, Flo, I think you might have made a better shot than that. Cicely Deane! Why, she looks on me as a sort of elder brother! I've known her since she was a baby. It's too preposterous, you know. Why, I should rather suspect you, ma belle, of falling in love with—with me than that self-possessed, cold-blooded little saint, the legitimate prey of the Church!"

"The Church has not had much success as yet. Last week she refused the Honorable and Reverend Basil Wendrop, Lord Hareford's second son, a divine with the profile of an Antoninus and the tongue of a Chrysostom; her parents are in despair about it. Ah, there is my partner at the door looking for me—Major Newton! I want you to look at him rather particularly, Jack, because I'm half contemplating matrimony with that lucky individual."

"Newton? O, I know him well! He's a very good fellow—just returned from India, has he not?"

"Yes; he has been away six years. He turned up the other day and calmly informed me that I had solemnly promised long ago to marry him if he could make a certain competence—a most ridiculous sum! I don't think I could have mentioned it, even in the school-room. Seven thousand pounds—absurd, you know! I don't remember the circumstance—in fact, I could scarcely recall the poor man's existence when he first appeared; but it seems he has been living on that promise for the last six years in one of the most unhealthy holes in India, starving and screwing to make up that wretched sum; and—now—now—if you please, he wants me to marry him and share it with him. He fell in love with me when I was a great fat-faced tomboy in the school-room, and has never thought of any one since—ridiculous man!"

"And you think of rewarding his fidelity? Do you like him, Flo?"

"Yes," she answers, with a faint blush, "I—I think I rather like him. He—he is nothing much to look at, of no particular position, not well off, and—and I suppose—in fact, I know—I could do better; but—"

"Yes?"

"Six years! A long time, wasn't it, Jack?" she says a little wistfully. "Six years—and—and I scarcely thought of him once after he left—poor Claud! All the others whom I jilted, or who jilted me, were on their legs a month or two afterward. I don't think, Jack, I have a very bounteous store of affection to bestow on any man, I don't think I have it in me to care for any one as I care for myself; still six years, you know—"

"Is a good spell. I would marry him if I were you. You have knocked about long enough now, Flo. I shouldn't be surprised if you found matrimony a pleasant change. Anyhow, you'll have my best wishes," says Everard heartily.

"Don't congratulate me yet," she answers flurriedly. "I—I haven't made up my mind in the least. After all, matrimony is a desperate plunge; once you're in, you can never get out again; and—and I could do so much better—so much better. There's Pelham Windsor. I had a great case with him at Brighton before Christmas, and he has asked mother and me down to his place in Hampshire next month—the Towers—a regular show-place—stabling for forty horses—"

"Pelham Windsor! He's a most insufferable little snob, Flo—scarcely up to your shoulder—and was divorced from his first wife."

"I know, I know," she answers petulantly. "But it was all her fault; she—"

"Of course, of course—it always is!"

"Flor—Miss Wynyard, I have been looking for you everywhere. This is our dance, I believe."

Major Newton stands before them, a man of about thirty-six, with a lean yellow face, sad brown eyes, and a long gaunt body emaciated by fever—a most incongruous cavalier for the lively florid Miss Wynyard, who however rises at once and lays her hand a little nervously on his arm, whispering to her cousin before she goes—

"Remember, Jack, I have your promise; not a word, a look, a sign to betray—"

"Oh, stuff, Florrie!" he answers impatiently. "Do you fancy I gave your nonsense a second thought? Absurd!"

Nevertheless, absurd as it seems, the nonsense does occupy his thoughts a good deal during the remainder of the evening, and, instead of following Lady Saunderson's conquering movements with stealthy feverish glance, as he has been doing hitherto, he finds himself watching little Cicely taking her pleasure, with an interest and a curiosity she has never roused in him before.

But, watch as closely as he may, he can detect no confirmatory sign, not even when he is bending over her, whispering pretty compliments in her ear. When his arm encircles her waist, her face within a few inches of his own, whirling round the room, her breath comes none the faster, her color does not change, her eye does not sink under his puzzled animated scrutiny.

"Flo," he whispers to his cousin, when he is cloaking her on her departure about two hours later, "you were out, my dear—quite out. You are either grossly mistaken, or were willfully misleading me. I've watched her, and there's not a sign of truth in your revelation—not a sign. I've watched her."

"Oh, if you have, Jack, of course that settles the question! I was grossly mistaken. Who could deceive your gimlet-eyes?"

"Not you, ma belle, not you, at any rate!" he retorts quickly, smiling into the girl's handsome sparkling face. "You've taken the plunge, Florrie! I thought you would. Come behind the curtain until I congratulate you on the spot."

Just as their lips are meeting in frank cousinly good-will, the drapery parts, and Major Newton, with no very pleasant expression, glares in on them.

Miss Wynyard, with the experience of many past misconceptions, hastens to explain the position of affairs, which her fiancÉ accepts amicably; and for the first time in the annals of her checkered career the course of Miss Wynyard's love runs smooth into the sea of matrimony about two months later.

She makes the major an excellent wife; and, though, as the years roll on, their means do not increase in proportion to their family, Mrs. Newton is never heard to complain or taunt her sober husband with the fact that she might have done better—not even when Madame Armine loses her custom altogether, and necessity has trained her hitherto idle fingers to turn her dresses and darn her children's stockings. The friendship between her and Lady Saunderson does not prosper, for their paths naturally diverge somewhat widely, and, when they meet again, after the lapse of some years, those erst kindred spirits find they have scarce a thought, a wish, a pleasure in common.

Pauline looks upon Florrie with contempt, as having degenerated into a dowdy, baby-ridden drudge, and Florrie pities Lady Saunderson's unloved and childless lot, chained to a man whom she despises and dislikes, with no light ahead to relieve the gray dreariness of coming age, when her beauty and her social triumphs will be things of the past.