In an atmosphere of drooping acacias, little palms, curious ferns, cacti, and other exotics in tubs and pots, where the light was subdued by the greenery overhead and around, and where the plashing of a beautiful bronze fountain alone broke the stillness, for in the nook of that great conservatory to which Sir Redmond Sleath had successfully drawn Ellinor alone, the music of the band and the merry voices of the garden party were scarcely heard, they were seated together on a blue velvet lounge; and he, having possessed himself of her fan, was slowly fanning her, while he hung admiringly over her--a process to which she submitted with a soft, dreamy smile in her speaking hazel eyes; while with every motion of the fan the ripples of her fine dark hair were blown slightly to and fro. Certainly a short intimacy had put these two on terms of familiarity, for he said, as he ceased to fan her, and settled down on the lounge by her side, with one arm, casually, as it were, thrown along the back thereof, 'I am not a stranger to you now.' His voice was pleasantly modulated as he stooped over her, and looked down on her drooping eyelashes. 'Oh, no--not now,' replied Ellinor. 'I am so happy to hear you admit this.' 'Why?' Ellinor felt her question to be foolish, as it was a leading one. 'Can you ask me?' said Sir Redmond, in a still lower voice, and venturing; to touch--just to pat--her hand; 'there are many persons whom we may know for years, and yet find them somehow strangers, but it is not so with you and I.' He now took her hand in his, and saw that it was delicately white--for she had drawn a glove off--and felt soft as velvet; he saw, too, that her white-veined eyelids with their long lashes drooped under his earnest gaze, and that her red lips quivered. Was he actually influencing her already? He could scarcely believe it, even with all his unparalleled assurance. She glanced nervously round her. 'Do not be alarmed, dear girl--darling Ellinor, let me say,' whispered Sleath, in his most honeyed accents, for who was to call him to account for his impertinence, if impertinence it really was? 'I shall be content to wait--to wait and win your love, if you will but let me hope. Some day--say one day you will listen to me, and I shall tell you more freely, more boldly how I love you--how I shall make you my own!' Ellinor trembled as she listened to these stilted phrases that came so glibly from his tongue--how often he had said them to others she little knew; and--even Robert Wodrow apart--she had never played with a man's heart as Sleath was now playing with hers. He said much more, running on in the same inflated style, feeling quite a zest in the, to him, well-nigh worn-out game of love-making; and Ellinor listened. She was far from being a fool, yet she failed to realise that his tones were very second-hand indeed, and that the real expression of his blue eyes, if triumphant, was also false.