But, on the contrary, she must be happy!—­must be loved!  To this, and this only, had she been brought by the hard experience of this strenuous year.

* * * * *

“Oh, Mrs. Lane, be an angel!” exclaimed Wharton’s voice.  “Just one turn—­five minutes!  The division will be called directly, and then we will all thank our stars and go to bed!”

In another instant he was at Marcella’s side, bare-headed, radiant, reckless even, as he was wont to be in moments of excitement.  He had seen her speak to Raeburn as he came out on the terrace, but his mind was too full for any perception of other people’s situations—­even hers.  He was absorbed with himself, and with her, as she fitted his present need.  The smile of satisfied vanity, of stimulated ambition, was on his lips; and his good-humour inclined him more than ever to Marcella, and the pleasure of a woman’s company.  He passed with ease from triumph to homage; his talk now audacious, now confiding, offered her a deference, a flattery, to which, as he was fully conscious, the events of the evening had lent a new prestige.

She, too, in his eyes, had triumphed—­had made her mark.  His ears were full of the comments made upon her to-night by the little world on the terrace.  If it were not for money—­hateful money!—­what more brilliant wife could be desired for any rising man?

So the five minutes lengthened into ten, and by the time the division was called, and Wharton hurried off, Marcella, soothed, taken out of herself, rescued from the emptiness and forlornness of a tragic moment, had given him more conscious cause than she had ever given him yet to think her kind and fair.

CHAPTER X.

“My dear Ned, do be reasonable!  Your sister is in despair, and so am I. Why do you torment us by staying on here in the heat, and taking all these engagements, which you know you are no more fit for than—­”

“A sick grasshopper,” laughed Hallin.  “Healthy wretch!  Did Heaven give you that sun-burn only that you might come home from Italy and twit us weaklings?  Do you think I want to look as rombustious as you?  ’Nothing too much,’ my good friend!”

Aldous looked down upon the speaker with an anxiety quite untouched by Hallin’s “chaff.”

“Miss Hallin tells me,” he persisted, “that you are wearing yourself out with this lecturing campaign, that you don’t sleep, and that she is more unhappy about you than she has been for months.  Why not give it up now, rest, and begin again in the winter?”

Hallin smiled a little as he sat with the tips of his fingers lightly joined in front of him.

“I doubt whether I shall live through the winter,” he said quietly.

Raeburn started.  Hallin in general spoke of his health, when he allowed it to be mentioned at all, in the most cheerful terms.