"But you might be so much in love with her that you could not leave her without being very miserable." "I might be very much in love with her, yes; but I would rather go away and be miserable than be humiliated by such a girl. Why do you smile, madame? Do you think I am vain, or that I am too young to know anything about that? Perhaps both are true, but one cannot help thinking." "Well," said Sheila, with a grandly maternal air of sympathy and interest, "you must always remember this--that you have something more important to attend to than merely looking out for a beautiful sweetheart. That is the fancy of a foolish girl. You have your profession, and you must become great and famous in that; and then some day, when you meet this beautiful woman and ask her to be your wife, she will be bound to do that, and you will confer honor on her as well as secure happiness to yourself. Now, if you were to fall in love with some coquettish girl like her you were singing about, you would have no more ambition to become famous, you would lose all interest in everything except her, and she would be able to make you miserable by a single word. When you have made a name for yourself, and got a good many more years, you will be better able to bear anything that happens to you in your love or in your marriage." "You are very kind to take so much trouble," said young Mosenberg, looking up with big, grateful eyes. "Perhaps, madame, if you are not very busy during the day, you will let me call in sometimes, and if there is no one here I will tell you about what I am doing, and play for you or sing for you, if you please." "In the afternoons I am always free," she said. "Do you never go out?" he asked. "Not often. My husband is at his studio most of the day." The boy looked at her, hesitated for a moment, and then, with a sudden rush of color to his face, "You should not stay so much in the house. Will you sometimes go for a little walk with me, madame, to Kensington Gardens, if you are not busy in the afternoon?" "Oh, certainly," said Sheila, without a moment's embarrassment. "Do you live near them?" "No: I live in Sloane street, but the underground railway brings me here in a very short time." That mention of Sloane street gave a twinge to Sheila's heart. Ought she to have been so ready to accept offers of new friendship just as her old friend had been banished from her? "In Sloane street? Do you know Mr. Ingram?" "Oh yes, very well. Do you?" "He is one of my oldest friends," said Sheila bravely: she would not acknowledge that their intimacy was a thing of the past.