"You mean love!" And Kathleen Weir shrugged her white shoulders. "My friend, that is because you are young and innocent. Love is a delusion, a pitfall into which we stumble only to find it full of disappointments. We love a man or a woman whom at the time we think perfection, but it is not the true man or woman, but an idealized creature of our own imaginations. We find this out when it is too late, and we blame the unfortunate recipient of our deluded affections, not our own folly in being deluded." "Well, I believe in love," answered Dereham, sturdily. "Long may you believe in it, then," said Kathleen, with a light laugh. "But, Dereham, you won't. You too will wake up and find your idol shattered." "How spiteful you are, Kathleen!" remarked Linda Falconer, calmly. "Have you had a disappointment in love lately?" "No, my dear, for I have not been in love. I love myself too well to waste my affections on an ungrateful man." "But you might find a grateful one?" said one of her friends, smiling. "I doubt it, greatly. However, I do not mean to try. I mean to amuse myself, and if you are always thinking of one person it is impossible to do so." She talked in this strain a little longer and then rose and went to the piano, and presently her wonderfully clear and ringing voice filled the room. The men present stood around her, except Lord Dereham, who remained in the supper-room with Linda Falconer. "How excited Kathleen Weir is to-night! Do you think she has taken too much champagne?" remarked Linda of her friend. Dereham laughed. "Can't tell," he said; "but that was all rot she talked." "Do you mean about love?" asked Linda, softly, and for a moment she looked in Dereham's face, and then cast down her beautiful eyes with a sigh. "Yes," he answered, ardently, and he bent forward and took her white hand. "I believe in it--and--and Linda, don't you?" "I--try not to think of it," she half-whispered. "But why?" "Because--ah, Dereham, you must not ask;" and again she sighed. "But I do ask, and I want you to answer me. Why do you try not to think of love?" "Because--the--the person I could love is not as I am." "How do you mean?" "His rank is different to mine," answered Linda, in a low, sad tone. "His rank! What has rank to do with it? If a man really loves he never thinks of these things. Linda, who is the person you could love? Will you tell me?" Again Linda looked in his face, and their eyes met; Linda's said very plainly--at least she intended them to say--"You are the person I could love"; and thus Dereham understood their meaning. "Then--then do love me, dearest," he said, bending closer, and half-whispering in her ear. "Let my rank be yours; your life be mine--be my wife?"