“What I wish to say to you involves your own safety and happiness.”

“I am grateful for your kind intentions, but they result from some erroneous impression.  My individual welfare is bound up with those whom you know not, and at all events I prefer not to discuss it.”

“You refuse me the privilege of a confidential talk with you?”

“Yes, Mr. Roscoe.  Now be pleasant, and let us converse on some more agreeable topic.  Did you ever meet Mrs. Carew until to-day?”

He was too angry to reply immediately; but after a little while mastered his indignation.

“I have the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Carew quite well.”

“She is remarkably beautiful.”

“Oh, unquestionably!  And she knows it better than any other article in her creed.  New York is spoiling her dreadfully.”

He turned and addressed some remarks to Miss St. Clare, who sat on his right, and Regina rejoiced in the opportunity afforded her of becoming a quiet observer and listener.  She had never seen her guardian so animated, so handsome as now, while he smiled genially and talked with his lovely guest, and watching them, Regina recollected the remark concerning their appearance which had been made by the gentleman in the car.

Was it possible that after all the lawyer’s heart had been seriously interested?  Could that satin-cheeked, grey-eyed Circe with pale yellow hair and lashes, hold him in silken bonds at her feet?  The idea that he could be captivated by any woman seemed utterly incompatible with all that his ward knew of his life and character, and it had appeared an established fact that he was incapable of any tender emotion; but certainly at this instant the expression with which he was gazing down into Mrs. Carew’s lotos face, was earnestly admiring.  While Regina watched the pair, a cold sensation crept over her as on some mild starlit night, one suddenly and unconsciously drifts under the lee of some vast, slow-sailing iceberg, and knows not, dreams not, of danger until smitten with the fatal prophetic chill.

Suppose the ambitious middle-aged man intended to marry this wealthy, petted, lovely widow, was it not in all respects a brilliant suitable match, which le beau monde would cordially applaud?  Was there a possibility that she would decline an alliance with that proud patrician, whose future seemed dazzling?

In birth, fortune, and beauty could he find her superior?

The flowers in the tall gold epergne in the centre of the table, and the wreath of scarlet camellias that swung down to meet them from the green bronze chandelier, began to dance a saraband.  Silver, crystal, china, even the human figures appeared whirling in a misty circle, across which the orange, emerald, and blue tints of the hock glasses shot hither and thither like witch-lights on the Brocken; and indistinct and spectral, yet alluring, gleamed the almond-shaped grey eyes with their gold fringes.