“He is Lord Stuart, and is said to possess vast estates in England. He has engaged a suite of rooms here for a month, the landlord says. All the girls are in ecstasies! There will be great fun seeing them pullings caps for him, won’t there? But of course I shall be as bad as any!” said Miss Spaulding, candidly. Mrs. de Vere made up her mind that she would be before any of those silly girls in winning the admiration of the titled Englishman. She would show Norman de Vere how she could be adored by others. It would teach him a needed lesson. When he began to realize that she could be happy in the society of other men, his jealousy would be aroused--he would be more careful how he offended her, lest he should lose her love. She made her toilet with the greatest care for the ball-room that night. Her dress was of dead-white silk; her ornaments were of emeralds set in pearls. It was very effective, as she meant it should be. Every one gazed at her admiringly as she swept gracefully into the ball-room, leaning on the arm of her handsome husband, and carrying in her hand the superb bouquet of white camellias he had brought her from Verelands that day. There was a glow on her smooth cheek and a fire in her hazel eyes, brought there by the praises he had just been whispering in her ear. Lord Stuart was there, looking on with the rest--a rather common-looking man after all, and fifty if he was a day old. But he was dressed in the extreme of English dude fashion, and was attracting his full share of attention from title-hunters, Miss Spaulding foremost among them, as she had declared she would be. His lordship started with surprise and admiration when he saw Camille de Vere in all her stately beauty. “What a magnificent beauty!” he exclaimed, in some excitement; and it was not long before he managed to secure an introduction to Mrs. de Vere. “Will you dance with me?” he asked; and she lifted her eyes and looked at him with a puzzled gaze. His voice sounded strangely familiar. “But I certainly can not have met him before,” she decided; and she acceded to his request with a winning smile. “You have been abroad, Mrs. de Vere?” he asked, in a pause of the dance. “Several times,” she replied; and she wondered to herself if she had ever met him before. Certainly there was something strangely familiar to her in his voice and eyes. But she did not intimate to him that such was the fact. Something deterred her, for Camille de Vere shrunk from the memory of one past episode in her life. If Lord Stuart belonged to that time, she would not dare recall it to his mind. “But I need not be afraid. It is so long ago, and all is so different now. No one would know me for the same,” she said to herself, with a sensation of keen relief, though her hands turned icy cold with the bare memory of that never-to-be-forgotten time. CHAPTER XIII.