toe, and then swing forward with her head a little to one side, her
uplifted arm undulating like the white neck of a swan,--for her
sleeve, which was slit to the shoulder, fell back and left it
bare,--she was a sight worth a long journey to see. And when she
looked up to Brandon with a laugh in her brown eyes, and a curving
smile just parting her full, red lips, that a man would give his very
luck to--but I had better stop.

"Was there ever a goodlier couple?" I asked Jane, by whose side I sat.

"Never," she responded as she played, and, strange to say, I was
jealous because she agreed with me. I was jealous because I feared it
was Brandon's beauty to which she referred. That I thought would
naturally appeal to her. Had he been less handsome, I should perhaps
have thought nothing of it, but I knew what my feelings were toward
Mary, and I judged, or rather misjudged, Jane by myself. I supposed
she would think of Brandon as I could not help thinking of Mary. Was
anything in heaven or earth ever so beautiful as that royal creature,
dancing there, daintily holding up her skirts with thumb and first
finger, just far enough to show a distracting little foot and ankle,
and make one wish he had been born a sheep rather than a sentient man
who had to live without Mary Tudor? Yet, strange as it may seem, I was
really and wholly in love with Jane; in fact, I loved no one but Jane,
and my feeling of intense admiration for Mary was but a part of man's
composite inconstancy.

A woman--God bless her--if she really loves a man, has no thought of
any other; one at a time is all-sufficient; but a man may love one
woman with the warmth of a simoon, and at the same time feel like a
good healthy south wind toward a dozen others. That is the difference