“Don’t marry your handsome officer unless you are in love with him!” she said insistingly still to the girl beside her. “Don’t mistake the childish affection you felt for him for something deeper. You have your whole life before you--don’t spoil it by precipitation or a false generosity or a reckless passion!” There was an anxious, troubled look in her eyes. The girl still stretched out on the tiger-skin glanced up again at The Beauty. “I seem to have started a subject in which you are deeply interested,” she said gayly to her. “And one in which you have had enormous experience too. Do you know you have an almost uncanny way of fascinating every man who comes near you. It’s a sure thing. None of the rest of us have a chance. I believe you could marry half a dozen or so at any time that you would take the trouble to say ‘yes’!” The girl addressed looked openly amused--“Please take a few off your list,” she said. But the other refused to notice her remark and ran on in her light way. “And they are all so nice too--it is really hard to choose, but I think on the whole I prefer a certain young man who shall be nameless. Now, would you call his devotion to yourself ‘mad precipitation or a false generosity or a reckless passion?’” She moved herself lazily over the yellow skin until her head rested against the girl’s knee. “And he is such a nice, eligible youth too. I hope you are not going to spoil his life by refusing him. Only think how lovely it would be to have one’s father-in-law representing the majesty of these United States at an Emperor’s court,” she went on, turning gayly to the others. “And he is so handsome and clever! He will be representing Uncle Sam himself some day, and she will be reading up the rules of court etiquette and receiving invitations from the Lord Chamberlain to dine with the Queen, and fuming because the Grand Duchess of something or other has the right to walk in to dinner before her.” She was not noticing the girl’s significant silence. “Of course he is just the man for you--you wouldn’t make any but a brilliant match, you know, with your beauty and society manner. But just for the present--well, next winter you will début, and you will be much talked about, and the youth will not be with his father at the European capital, but will be very much _en évidence_ here, and then--after Easter we shall get _your_ cards!” She twisted her head around, smiling, so as to get a look at the girl’s face above her. It wore so grave and hopeless an expression that she gave a little cry. “Forgive me,” she said, confusedly, “but you do love him, don’t you?” The Beauty turned her eyes away and shook herself slightly, as if awakening from a dream. “As confession seems to be the order of the hour,” she said in a dull tone, and smiling peculiarly, “I don’t mind owning that I do love him very much.”