Under no circumstances, perhaps, would it have been otherwise. Blanche was of a calmer disposition, very different from the vivacious emotional temperament of Sylla Chipchase; and then she had never felt the nervous apprehension as to its results that had so terrified Sylla. Miss Bloxam loved her brother very dearly, but it would never occur to her to feel any great anxiety at seeing Jim fall. She would have told you quietly that "Jim knew how to fall." But she was filled with exceeding bitterness about one thing,--that her secret love-test had resulted in failure, and that her heart was, to a considerable extent, out of her possession before it had been asked for. No, her difference with Lionel Beauchamp was not to be passed over so lightly as all that. If he could refuse the slight request that she had made him, he could care very little about her. "As if any man, honestly in love, would hesitate to break a mere promise made to another woman!" And to the best of my belief, the majority of her sex would be quite of Blanche's opinion. "He does not get up," thought Mrs. Wriothesley, as she drove home from Hurlingham. "Yes, Sylla, my dear, you have told me something to-day that I honestly don't believe you knew yourself before. When accidents happen in the plural, and young ladies remark upon them only in the singular number, it is a sign of absorbing interest in somebody concerned. People generally, I think, would have observed, 'They don't get up.'" But Mrs. Wriothesley wisely kept all these reflections to herself. CHAPTER X. MRS. WRIOTHESLEY'S LITTLE DINNER. The accident at Hurlingham had opened Sylla's eyes. She became conscious of what her feeling for Jim Bloxam was fast ripening into. It made her thoughtful. She was suddenly aware that she cared considerably more about him than it was wise that a maiden should for any man not her avowed lover. She was a good deal startled by the discovery; for had she asked herself the question previous to seeing him stretched, as she thought, badly hurt, or perhaps even killed, on the grass at that polo match, she would have answered, as she believed truthfully, that she liked Captain Bloxam very much: he was a very pleasant acquaintance; but as to his being anything more to her, she would have scouted the idea. She knew now that he was more to her than that, and Sylla pondered gravely upon what was her best course to pursue. One thing was quite clear, and that was, a previous intention of hers must be abandoned. She accordingly dispatched a note to Lionel Beauchamp, telling him that he need take no further trouble about her commission, which elicited a speedy reply to the effect that it was already executed.