"I would rather talk to you," she replied, "than do anything else." The two beautiful, graceful women left the ballroom together. Leone made some remark on the magnificence of the rooms as they passed, and Lady Chandos smiled. "I am a very home-loving being myself. I prefer the pretty little morning-room where we take breakfast, and my own boudoir, to any other place in the house; they seem to be really one's own because no one else enters them. Come to my boudoir now, Madame Vanira, and I will show you a whole lot of pretty treasures that I brought from Spain." "From Spain." She little knew how those words jarred even on Leone's heart. It was in Spain they had intrigued to take her husband from her, and while Lady Marion was collecting art treasures the peace and happiness of her life had been wrecked, her fair name blighted, her love slain. She wondered to herself at the strange turn of fate which had brought her into contact with the one woman in all the world that she felt she ought to have avoided. But there was no resisting Lady Marion when she chose to make herself irresistible. There was something childlike and graceful in the way in which she looked up to Madame Vanira, with an absolute worship of her genius, her voice, and her beauty. She laid her white hand on Leone's. "You will think me a very gushing young lady, I fear, Madame Vanira, if I say how fervently I hope we shall always be friends; not in the common meaning of the words, but real, true, warm friends until we die. Have you ever made such a compact of friendship with any one?" Leone's heart smote her, her face flushed. "Yes," she replied; "I have once." Lady Chandos looked up at her quickly. "With a lady, I mean?" "No," said Leone; "I have no lady friends; indeed, I have few friends of any kind, though I have many acquaintances." Lady Marion's hand lingered caressingly on the white shoulder of Leone. "Something draws me to you," she said; "and I cannot tell quite what it is. You are very beautiful, but it is not that; the beauty of a woman would never win me. It cannot be altogether your genius, though it is without peer. It is a strange feeling, one I can hardly explain--as though there was something sympathetic between us. You are not laughing at me, Madame Vanira?" "No, I am not laughing," said Leone, with wondering eyes. How strange it was that Lance's wife, above all other women, should feel this curious, sympathetic friendship for her! They entered the beautiful boudoir together, and Lady Marion, with pardonable pride, turned to her companion. "Lord Chandos arranged this room for me himself. Have you heard the flattering, foolish name for me that the London people have invented? They call me the Queen of Blondes." "That is a very pretty title," said Leone, "they call me a queen, the Queen of Song." And the two women who were, each in her way, a "queen," smiled at each other.