or on fancied duty, succumbs to no weariness. I had a woman before me
worth studying and the time could not be thrown away. I learned to
know her beauty; the poise of her head, the flush of her cheek, the
curl of her lip, the glance--yes, the glance of her eye, though that
was more difficult to understand, for she had a way of drooping her
lids at times that, while exceedingly effective upon the poor wretch
toward whom she might be directing that half-veiled shaft of light,
was anything but conducive to my purposes.

At length with a restless shrug of her haughty shoulders she turned
away from her crowd of adorers, her breast heaving under its robing
of garnet velvet, and her whole face flaring with a light that might
mean resolve and might mean simply love. I had no need to turn my
head to see who was advancing towards her; her stately attitude as
countess, her thrilling glance as woman, betrayed only too readily.

He was the more composed of the two. Bowing over her hand with a few
words I could not hear, he drew back a step and began uttering the
usual common-place sentiments of the occasion.

She did not respond. With a splendor of indifference not often seen
even in the manner of our grandest ladies, she waited, opening and
shutting her richly feathered fan, as one who would say, "I know all
this has to be gone through with, therefore I will be patient." But
as the moments passed, and his tone remained unchanged, I could
detect a slight gleam of impatience flash in the depths of her dark
eyes, and a change come into the conventional smile that had hitherto
lighted, without illuminating her countenance. Drawing still further
back from the crowd that was not to be awed from pressing upon her,
she looked around as if seeking a refuge. Her glance fell upon a