Meantime Mr. Beauclerk is still carrying on a charming recitative. "_Such a bore!_" he is saying, with heartfelt disgust in his tone. It is really wonderful how he can _always_ do it. There is never a moment when he flags. He is for ever up to time as it were, and equal to the occasion. "I'm afraid you rather misunderstood me just now, when I said I'd been looking for you--but the fact is, Browne's such an ass, if he knew we had made an appointment to meet in the library, he'd have brayed the whole affair to any and every one." "Was there an appointment?" says Miss Kavanagh, who is feeling a little unsettled--a little angry with herself perhaps. "No--no," with a delightful acceptation of her rebuke. "You are right as ever. I was wrong. But then, you see, it gave me a sort of joy to believe that our light allusion to a possible happy half-hour before the turmoil of the dance began might mean something _more_--something----Ah! well never mind! Men are vain creatures; and after all it would have been a happy half-hour to me _only_!" "Would it?" says she with a curious glance at him. "_You_ know that!" says he, with the full and earnest glance he can turn on at a second's notice without the slightest injury to heart or mind. "I don't indeed." "Oh well, you haven't time to think about it perhaps. I found you very fully occupied when--at last--I was able to get to the library. Browne we all know is a very--er--lively companion--if rather wanting in the higher virtues." "'_At last_,'" says she quoting his words. She turns suddenly and looks at him, a world of inquiry in her dark eyes. "I hate pretence," says she curtly, throwing up her young head with a haughty movement. "You said you would be in the library at such an hour, and though I did not _promise_ to meet you there, still, as I happened to be dressed earlier than I believed possible, I came down, and you----? Where were you?" There is a touch of imperiousness in that last question that augurs badly for a false wooer; but the imperiousness suits her. With her pretty chin uptilted, and that little scornful curve upon her lips, and her lovely eyes ablaze, she looks indeed "a thing of beauty." Beauclerk regards her with distinct approbation. After all--had she even _half_ the money that the heiress possesses, _what_ a wife she would make. And it isn't decided yet one way or the other; sometimes Fate is kind. The day may come when this delectable creature may fall to his portion. "I can see you are thinking hard things of me," says he reproachfully; "but you little know how I have been passing the time I had so been looking forward to. Time to be passed with _you_. That old Lady Blake--she _would_ keep me maundering to her about that son of hers in the Mauritius; _you_ know he and I were at St. Petersburg together. I couldn't get away. You blame me--but what was I to do? An old woman--unhappy----"