“He is not!” she flashed impetuously. “That was no legal tie. Some foolish chit of a country lass flung herself at him, with the usual result. Any man would have done as he did, but unlike most men, he, out of pity and from a high sense of honor, married her; but it was an irregular marriage, which was speedily annulled by the girl’s father. He is free now, free as ever he was. The girl has given him up, poor fool. I only am the shackled one, a prisoner for life, unless——” An eager light flashed in her deepened eyes. “Unless Robert Burns elopes with ye!” he finished sarcastically. “I warn ye, Alice, not to play with edged tools;’tis o’er dangerous. Be more careful or others will suspect what I already know.” She smiled disdainfully and shrugged her shapely shoulders. “Do not force me to open your husband’s eyes!” he retorted, angered by her irritating indifference. She looked at him, her heart filled with sudden fury. How she would like to hit him in the face with her fan, how she hated him and his interference, his unwelcome advice. “Already,” he continued irritably, “you have given that scandalmonger, Eppy McKay, cause to suspect your too warm and ardent affection for Mr. Burns, by openly showing jealousy of Lady Nancy Gordon.” “I jealous of Nancy Gordon?” she repeated, with airy scorn, walking toward the door of the conservatory. “Huh, not I, uncle; I am not so unconscious of my own charms,” and she drew her magnificent figure up to its full height, then smiled insolently into his perturbed and nervous face. “I thank you for all your advice,” she murmured sweetly as they traversed the long hall, “but remember, hereafter, that I mean to steer my own canoe, whether it leads me into safe waters or through the rapids.” And with a radiant smile upon her sensuous lips she entered the drawing-room, leaning affectionately upon the arm of her outraged but speechless relative. Quietly she took her place by her waiting husband’s side, her dark eyes full of a bewitching and dangerous softness, for her thoughts were on the one guest whose very name had the power to move her so completely. Never had she appeared so dazzlingly beautiful, as she stood there meeting her friends and acquaintances with a deep ceremonious courtesy for the distinguished ones, a smile and a nod for her intimates, and an air of high-bred insolence and extreme self-satisfaction pervading her whole appearance.