Here Lady Alice's old eyes wandered toward the spot where Guy Strangways stood, resting them but a moment; every time she looked so at him, this melancholy likeness struck her with a new force. She sighed and shuddered, and removed her eyes. On looking again at M. Varbarriere, she saw the same slightly truculent shadow over his features, as again he looked drowsily upon the carpet. She had spent nearly a quarter of a century in impressing her limited audience with the idea that if there were thunderbolts in heaven they ought to fall upon Sir Jekyl Marlowe. Yet, now that she saw in that face something like an evil dream, a promise of judgment coming, a feeling of compunction and fear agitated her. She looked over his stooping shoulders and saw pretty Beatrix leaning on the back of her father's chair, the young lady pleading gaily for some concession, Sir Jekyl laughing her off. "How pretty she looks to-night--poor Trixie!" said Lady Alice, unconsciously. M. Varbarriere raised his head, and looked, directed by her gaze, toward father and daughter. But his countenance did not brighten. On the contrary, it grew rather darker, and he looked another way, as if the sight offended him. "Pretty creature she is--pretty Beatrix!" exclaimed the old lady, looking sadly and fondly across at her. No response was vouchsafed by M. Varbarriere. "Don't you think so? Don't you think my granddaughter very lovely?" Thus directly appealed to, M. Varbarriere conceded the point, but not with effusion. "Yes, Mademoiselle is charming--she is very charming--but I am not a critic. I have come to that time of life, Lady Alice, at which our admiration of mere youth, with its smooth soft skin and fresh tints, supersedes our appreciation of beauty." In making this unsatisfactory compliment, he threw but one careless glance at Beatrix. "That girl, you know, is heiress of all this--nothing but the title goes to Dives, and the small estate of Grimalston," said Lady Alice. "Of course I love my grandchild, but it always seems to me wrong to strip a title of its support, and send down the estates by a different line." "Miss Beatrix Marlowe has a great deal too much for her own happiness. It is a disproportioned fortune, and in a young lady so sensible will awake suspicions of all her suitors. 'You are at my feet, sir,' she will think, 'but is your worship inspired by love or by avarice?' She is in the situation of that prince who turned all he touched into gold; while it feeds the love of money, it starves nature." "I don't think it has troubled her head much as yet. If she had no dot whatever, she could not be less conscious," said the old lady.