"He has boastfully told me of the cruel way in which he jilted her."

"Yes? Ah, well, my dear, there are such experiences in almost every life-romances which in the end amount to nothing."

"Nothing? And you say that in this instance a sweet, young, and innocent life was sacrificed! Oh, mamma!" Lady Hortense's voice was full of unutterable pain, and her breath came quickly as she fixed great stricken eyes upon her mother's face.

For a moment Mrs. Ayers went on sipping her tea in silence. She was a woman of diplomacy, and that she had for once forgotten to be discreet in her argument both embarrassed and vexed her.

She looked up presently.

"I did not say that Louise actually died of disappointment, Hortense. I do not think she could have loved him to such an extent. I think the immediate cause of her death was consumption. But you know, my dear, that in all such affairs the world will have its separate and various conceptions. No," she added, "I am quite sure the affaire with Sir Philip had nothing to do, virtually, with her death. She did not love him to that excess."

"Love him! No. I do not think that Louise could have loved Sir Philip Camden," her daughter said, and there was visible revolt in her tone.

"No, no," echoed her experienced heart, "she could not by any possible chance have loved him."

Mrs. Ayers noted the intonation of revolt, and again the veins on her temples expanded. She made no effort now to repress her vexation, but said derisively:

"Why do you then find it impossible to imagine any woman as being in love with the man whom you, through what is nothing more nor less than a narrow-minded prejudice, have sealed your heart against? Your creed is malevolent in the extreme, and becomes at once an indignity to yourself and an effrontery to the man whose name you bear. Sir Philip Camden, knowing the exact attitude which you have assumed toward him, would hate you! Beware, oh Hortense, Lady Camden, of that day when you find yourself an object of antipathy in his eyes! When a man of his stamp hates, he hates with a vehemence which carries virulent poison in its fang."

"I know. I-for months-I have felt a growing dread of the future; but that I have 'sealed my heart against him,' as you say, is not true. Night and day have I battled against my heart's coldness. Night and day have I prayed to God to change me toward my husband-to give me a sense of wifely interest, of duty, of respect, but no answer has been granted to my supplications.

Each day we are drifting further apart, and I am defenseless against whatever may come."

There was little sympathy in the parent face opposite as Lady Hortense concluded thus hopelessly. Instead of bestowing a word of condolence in behalf of her child's sorrow, Mrs. Ayers merely said, after a few moments of silence which were filled up with the other's suppressed sobs:

"Your face, my dear, will be swollen and disfigured. I am sure you have pride sufficient to guard you against letting your contretemps become an open letter to the world. Hark!" she said suddenly, "I hear the sound of sleighbells. Some of your guests are arriving even now."

Lady Hortense rose quickly and looked at her watch.

"Yes," she cried in dismay, "it is half past four. Mamma, you must go down and receive. them, and see that they are all shown proper apartments. But kiss me before you go, dearest, won't you?" she asked suppliantly.

What parent heart could refuse such a pathetic appeal as that of Lady Hortense ?

Mrs. Ayers bent and kissed twice the upturned, almost childish face; but her cheek coming in such close contact with that other tear-moist one, was distasteful to her sense of dignity, and as she turned away and descended the highly-polished stair-way, along which floated the mingled odor

of roses, lilies-of-the-valley, jessamine and various other kinds of redolent blossoms from below, she muttered to herself those words of Shakespeare:

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child !

CHAPTER XIV

AT FESTAL TIDE

There is no armor against Fate.
-Shirely.

A blaze of myriad-tinted lights; a blending of many subtle perfumes into one ecstatic and harmonious odor, which seemed to "swing the soul on a golden thread to heaven"; a swaying of delicious music from unknown regions-music which one moment throbbed out in wildest passionladen strains of melody, now trembled aloft in suppliant, soul-reaching pathos, now tranquilly declined into the fragrance from which it seemed to have had its origin, like a dying whisper of love.

A vast canvas gleamed like an acre of polished Ceylon ivory on the floors of the two drawingrooms, which had been thrown into one grand and spacious apartment to serve as a ball-room, and immediately beyond which the large banquet hall was partially revealed through swaying curtains of jessamine vine, starred with their own sweet, pale blossoms, before which there stood a statue of Flora, with one arm uplifted as if about to part the trailing draperies asunder. At the other extremity of the ball-room, through a lengthening vista of tropical plants and spraying