"But the world in general considers him a very agreeable man," said Earle. "I do not. We will not talk of him. Say something very loving and very pleasant to me, Earle, that will send all tiresome thoughts out of my mind." "You have no right with tiresome thoughts. What are they? Tell me them," he said. She laughed, but the laugh was a sigh. "What tiresome thoughts can I have, Earle, except that I regret youth and pleasure are not immortal? I can have no other. Say something loving to me, Earle." He bent over her and whispered words that brought a sweet, bright blush to her face; then she stood up. "Now give me my flowers, Earle." He did so, shaking the little golden bells. "Do I look bright and brilliant again?" she asked--"like the belle of the ball?" "Yes, bright as the morning star." "Now for Prince Poermal and some sugared German compliments," she said. And they returned to the ball-room. The prince, all smiles, all gallantry, all devotion, came up to claim her hand. Earle watched her as she danced with him; she was all smiles, all brightness, all light. She talked gayly, she laughed, and the prince appeared to be charmed with her. Earle wondered more and more. Was it possible this brilliant, beautiful girl was the one he had seen so short a time before, white, cold, and silent, as though some terrible trouble lay over her. He saw what universal admiration she excited; how many admiring glances followed her; he saw that in that brilliant assembly there was no one to compare with her, and he wondered at his own good fortune in winning so peerless a creature. Yet he felt that there was something strange about her, something that he could not understand. Her spirits were strangely unequal; one minute she was all fire, animation, and excitement, the next dull and absent. He tried to account for it all by saying to himself the life was new to her--new and very strange--and it was only natural that she should feel strange in it. Later on in the evening, when the brilliant ball was almost over, Lord Vivianne sought Lady Studleigh again. "I am going to ask a great favor," he said; "it is that I may be permitted to call. I have had the pleasure of an introduction to the Earl of Linleigh." "I shall be much pleased," she replied, indifferently--so indifferently that he could not possibly tell whether she were pleased or otherwise. "Shall you remain much longer in town?" he asked, determined to keep up a conversation with her. "I hope so," she replied. "I think London is incomparable; I cannot imagine any other life half so delightful." "You should see Paris," he said, looking earnestly at her. "Yes, I should like to see court life in Paris. I was there as a child, but, as a matter of course, I have no knowledge of French society. I was too young to know much about it." "You must try to spend some time there; there is a brilliancy about French society that we do not find in England."