the words could not be intended for her; nevertheless she had learned a
lesson from them.

"I am like yourself, Norman," she said; "I do not care for the play at
all; we will go home," and they left the house before the Grand Duchess
had played her part.




Chapter IX.



Philippa L'Estrange thought long and earnestly over her last
conversation with Lord Arleigh. She had always loved him; but the
chances are that, if he had been devoted to her on his return, if he had
wooed her as others did, she would have been less _empressée_. As it
was, he was the only man she had not conquered, the only one who
resisted her, on whom her fascinations fell without producing a magical
effect. She could not say she had conquered her world while he was
unsubdued. Yet how was it? She asked herself that question a hundred
times each day. She was no coquette, no flirt, yet she knew she had but
to smile on a man to bring him at once to her feet; she had but to make
the most trifling advance, and she could do what she would. The Duke of
Mornton had twice repeated his offer of marriage--she had refused him.
The Marquis of Langland, the great match of the day, had made her an
offer, which she had declined. The Italian Prince Cetti would have given
his possessions to take her back with him to his own sunny land, but she
had refused to go. No woman in England had had better offers of