But he had seen her perfectly.  Next to the woman he most wishes to see in a room, the one whom a man first catches sight of is the woman he would sooner were not there.  He had seen Helen the very instant he came in, but he had noticed thankfully that some one was talking to her, and he said to himself that there was no occasion for him to hurry to her side; it was not as if they were openly engaged; there could be no necessity for him to rush into slavery at once; he would speak to her, of course, by-and-by; and whenever he came to her he well knew that he would be equally welcomed:  he was so sure of her.  Nothing on earth or under Heaven is so fatal to a man’s love as that.  There was no longer any uncertainty; there was none of the keenness of pursuit dear to the old hunting instinct inherent in man; there was not even the charm of variety in her moods.  She was always the same to him; always she pouted a little at first, and looked ill-tempered, and reproached him; and always she came round again at his very first kind word, and poured out her heart in a torrent of worship at his feet.  Maurice knew it all by heart, the sulks and the cross words, and then the passionate denials, and the wild protestations of her undying love.  He was sorry for her, too, in his way; he was too tender-hearted, too chivalrous, to be anything but kind to her; but though he was sorry, he could not love her; and, oh! how insufferably weary of her he was!

Presently he did come up to her, and took the seat by her side just vacated by the attache.  The little serio-comedy instantly repeated itself.

A little pout and a little toss of the head.

“You have been as long coming to speak to me as you possibly could be.”

“Do you think it would look well if I had come rushing up to you the instant I came in?”

“You need not, at all events, have stood talking for ten minutes to that great black-eyed Lady Anderleigh.  Of course, if you like her better than me, you can go back to her.”

“Of course I can, if I choose, you silly little woman; but seeing that I am by you, and not by her, I suppose it is a proof that I prefer your society, is it not?”

Very polite, but not strictly true, Captain Maurice!  At his heart he preferred talking to Lady Anderleigh, or to any other woman in the room.  The admission, however, was quite enough for Helen.

“Dear Maurice,” she whispered, “forgive me; I am a jealous, bad-tempered wretch, but,” lower still, “it is only because I love you so much.”

And had there been no one in the room, Maurice knew perfectly that at this juncture Mrs. Romer would have cast her arms around his neck—­as usual.

To his unspeakable relief, a man—­a clever lawyer, whose attention was a flattering thing to any woman—­came up to Helen at this moment, and took a vacant chair beside her.  Maurice thankfully slipped away, leaving his inamorata in a state of rage and disgust with that talented and elderly lawyer, such as no words can describe.