"And if the time does not seem so wonderfully precious to me, what then?" said the lady, looking straight at him, and giving to her voice a truly irresistible charm, a tone in which the least possible rebuke of his presumption was mingled with the subtlest encouragement. "What then?" she repeated. ("Decidedly, he is dreadfully in earnest," she thought.) "Then," said Routh, in a low hoarse voice, "then I do not say you are deceiving me, but I am deceiving myself." So Mr. Felton received the answer to his note, and found that he must wait until the following Thursday. People talked about Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge at Homburg as they had talked about her at New York and at Paris, at Florence and at Naples; in fact, in every place where she had shone and sparkled, distributed her flashing glances, and dispensed her apparently inexhaustible dollars. They talked of her at all the places of public resort, and in all the private circles. Mr. Felton was eagerly questioned about his beautiful compatriot by the people whom he met at the springs and in the gardens, and even by the visitors to Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers. Probably he did not know much about her; certainly he said little. She was a widow, without near relations, childless, and possessed of a large fortune. There was no doubt at all about that. Was she "received" in her own country? Yes, certainly. He had never heard anything against her. Her manners were very independent, rather too independent for European ideas. Very likely Mr. Felton was not a judge. At all events, ladies rarely visited the brilliant American. Indeed! But that did not surprise him. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge did not care for ladies' society--disliked it, in fact--and had no hesitation about saying so. Women did not amuse her, and she cared only for being amused. This, with the numerous amplifications which would naturally attend such a discussion, had all been heard by George, and was just the sort of thing calculated to excite the curiosity and interest of a young man of his disposition and antecedents. But it all failed to attract him now. Life had become very serious and real to George Dallas of late, and the image he carried about with him, enshrined in his memory, and sanctified in his heart, had nothing in common with the prosperous and insolent beauty which was the American's panoply.