What struck her at once was his gravity; and he must have seen the
droop in her eyes, for he immediately assumed the pleasant, half-
reckless smile which the world of London society had learnt to
associate with his name.

He played the lover rather well, with that finish and absence of
self-consciousness which only comes from sincerity; and when Miss
Chyne found opportunity to look at him a second time she was fully
convinced that she loved him. She was, perhaps, carried off her
feet a little--metaphorically speaking, of course--by his evident
sincerity. At that moment she would have done anything that he had
asked her. The pleasures of society, the social amenities of
aristocratic life, seemed to have vanished suddenly into thin air,
and only love was left. She had always known that Jack Meredith was
superior in a thousand ways to all her admirers. More gentlemanly,
more truthful, honester, nobler, more worthy of love. Beyond that,
he was cleverer, despite a certain laziness of disposition--more
brilliant and more amusing. He had always been to a great extent
the chosen one; and yet it was with a certain surprise and sense of
unreality that she found what she had drifted into. She saw the
diamond ring, and looked upon it with the beautiful emotions aroused
by those small stones in the female breast; but she did not seem to
recognise her own finger within the golden hoop.

It was at this moment--while she dwelt in this new unreal world--
that he elected to tell her of his quarrel with his father. And
when one walks through a maze of unrealities nothing seems to come
amiss or to cause surprise. He detailed the very words they had
used, and to Millicent Chyne it did not sound like a real quarrel
such as might affect two lives to their very end. It was not