"Thank you, Mrs. Routh," said George. "You are always right, and always kind. I must tell my uncle what has passed this evening. Thus much I may say to you. He has had no news of his son lately, and will be very glad to receive any." "I don't think he will be glad to receive news of his son through _her_," said Harriet. All the time this conversation lasted she had been scanning the crowd through which they were moving, and noting every fresh arrival. "Shall we go into the gardens? the lights look pretty," she continued. George acquiesced, and they passed through the wide doors and down the broad steps into the gay scene over which the tranquil starlit sky spread a canopy of deep cloudless blue; the blue of tempered steel; the dark blue of the night, which is so solemnly beautiful. "Are you always so successful?" a voice, pitched to a low and expressive key, said to a lady, who sat, an hour later that night, with a heap of gold and silver beside her, under the brilliant light which streamed down over the gaming-tables and their occupants, but lighted up no such dauntless, bright, conquering beauty as hers. The man who had spoken stood behind her; his hand rested on the back of her chair, and was hidden in the folds of the laced drapery which fell over her dress. She gave him an upward, backward flash of her black eyes, and answered: "Always, and in everything. I invariably play to win. But sometimes I care little for the game, and tire of it in the winning. Now, for instance, I am tired of this." "Will you leave it, then?" "Of course," and she rose as she spoke, took up her money, dropped it with a laugh into a silver-net bag, a revival of the old gypsin, which hung at her waist, and, drawing her lace drapery round her, moved away. The man who had spoken followed her closely and silently. She passed into one of the saloons, and out into a long balcony, on which a row of windows opened, and which overlooked the gardens filled with groups of people. A band was stationed in one of the rooms which opened upon the terrace, and the music sounded pleasantly in the still air. "And so you are always successful!" said the man who had spoken before to the lady, who leaned upon the balcony, with light from within just tingeing the satin of her dress, and the faint light of the moon and stars lending her grace and beauty a softened radiance which well became them, though somewhat foreign to them. "I believe that firmly. Indeed, how could you fail? I cannot fancy you associated with defeat. I cannot fancy anything but triumph for such a Venus Victrix as you are!" "You say very pretty things," was the slightly contemptuous answer, "and you say them very well. But I think I am a little tired of them, among other things. You see, I have heard so many of them, ever since I can remember. In fact, I have eaten bonbons of every kind, of all the colours, as they say in Paris, and they pall upon my taste now."