Sir Adrian is smiling gayly at some little speech of Dora’s, and Dora is looking up at him with a bright expression in her blue eyes that tells of the happiness she feels.

“Ah, I can not help thinking Adrian is doing very wisely,” observes Arthur Dynecourt, some evil genius at his elbow urging him to lie.

“Doing—­what?” asks his companion, roused suddenly into full life and interest.

“You pretend ignorance, no doubt”—­smiling.  “But one can see.  Adrian’s marriage with Mrs. Talbot has been talked about for some time amongst his intimates.”

A clasp like ice seems to seize upon Miss Delmaine’s heart as these words drop from his lips.  She restrains her emotion bravely, but his lynx-eye reads her through and through.

“They seem to be more together to-night than is even usual with them,” goes on Arthur blandly.  “Before you honored the room with your presence, he had danced twice with her, and now again.  It is very marked, his attention to-night.”

As a matter of fact Adrian had not danced with Mrs. Talbot all the evening until now, but Florence, not having been present at the opening of the ball, is not in a position to refute this, as he well knows.

“If there were anything in her friendship with Sir Adrian, I feel sure Dora would tell me of it,” she says slowly, and with difficulty.

“And she hasn’t?” asks Arthur, with so much surprise and incredulity in his manner as goes far to convince her that there is some truth in his statement.  “Well, well,” he adds, “one can not blame her.  She would doubtless be sure of his affection before speaking even to her dearest friend.”

Florence winces, and sinks back upon the seat as though unable to sustain an upright position any longer.  Every word of his is as gall and wormwood to her, each sentence a reminder—­a reproach.  Only the other day this man now beside her had accused her of making sure of Sir Adrian’s affection before she had any right so to do.  Her proud spirit shrinks beneath the cruel taunt he hurls at her.

“You look unusually ‘done up,’” he goes on, in a tone of assumed commiseration.  “This evening has been too much for you.  Acting a part at any time is extremely trying and laborious.”

She shrinks still further from him.  Acting a part!  Is not all her life becoming one dreary drama, in which she acts a part from morning until night?  Is there to be no rest for her?  Oh, to escape from this man at any price!  She rises to her feet.

“Our dance is almost at an end,” she says; “and the heat is terrible.  I can remain here no longer.”

“You are ill,” he exclaims eagerly, going to her side.  He would have supported her, but by a gesture she repels him.

“If I am, it is you who have made me so,” she retorts, with quick passion, for which she despises herself an instant later.

“Nay, not I,” he rejoins, “but what my words have unconsciously conveyed to you.  Do not blame me.  I thought you, as well as every one else here, knew of Adrian’s sentiments with regard to Mrs. Talbot.”