eyes, was lounging in an easy chair in an attitude well calculated to
show to advantage his graceful outlines. For occupation he was turning
over a portfolio of sketches, whose authorship was indicated by the
attitude of the lady seated near by.

She was a woman of commanding presence, with full lips, whose
expression was contradicted by the almost haughty carriage of her fine
head and the keen glance of her eye, which indicated too much character
for the mere pleasure-seeker. Her hair was of a rich chestnut, and she
wore a dress of steel gray cashmere, relieved at the throat by a knot
of pale orange, which harmonized admirably with her clear complexion.
She watched her companion as if secretly anxious for his good opinion
of her drawings, yet too proud to betray any feeling in the matter. He,
for his part, turned them over with seeming listlessness, breaking out
now and then with some abrupt remark.

"Yes," he said suddenly, after a ten minutes' silence, "I'm going to be
married at once. It will be 'a marriage in the bush,' as the Suabians
call an impecunious match, since neither of us has any money; and I, at
least, haven't so great a superfluity of brains that in this
intelligent age of the world I am ever likely to make much by selling
myself; and that is the only way any body gets any money nowadays."

"I hardly think you'd be willing to sell," his companion answered, "no
matter how good the market."

"There's where you are wrong," he answered, looking up with a sudden
frown, "the worst thing about me is that with sufficient inducement--or
even merely from the temptation of an especially good opportunity--I
should sell myself body and soul to the Philistines."