“There; you see,” said Lucy archly, “but two lines are open to our honorable ambition, marriage and--water-colors. I think marriage the more honorable of the two; above all, it is the more fashionable. Can you blame me, then, if my ambition chooses the altar and not the easel?” “So that is what you have been bringing me to.” “You came of your own accord,” was the sly retort. “Let me offer you some luncheon.” “No, thank you; I could not eat a morsel just now.” Eve went away, her bright little face visibly cast down. It was not Miss Fountain's words only, and that new trait of hard satire, which she had so suddenly produced from her secret recesses. Her very tones were cynical and worldly to Eve's delicate sense of hearing. “Poor, poor David!” she thought, and when she got to the door of the room she sighed; and as she went home she said more than once to herself, “No more heart than a marble statue. Oh, how true our first thought is! I come back to mine--” Lucy (sola). _“Then_ what right had she to come here and try to turn me inside out?” CHAPTER X. As the hour of Lucy's departure drew near, Mr. Fountain became anxious to see her betrothed to his friend, for fear of accidents. “You had better propose to her in form, or authorize me to do so, before she goes to that Mrs. Bazalgette.” This time it was Talboys that hung back. He objected that the time was not opportune. “I make no advance,” said he; “on the contrary, I seem of late to have lost ground with your niece.” “Oh, I've seen the sort of distance she has put on; all superficial, my dear sir. I read it in your favor. I know the sex; they can't elude me. Pique, sir--nothing on earth but female pique. She is bitter against us for shilly-shallying. These girls hate shilly-shally in a man. They are monopolists--severe monopolists; shilly-shally is one of their monopolies. Throw yourself at her feet, and press her with ardor; she will clear up directly.” The proposed attitude did not tempt the stiff Talboys. His pride took the alarm. “Thank you. It is a position in which I should not care to place myself unless I was quite sure of not being refused. No, I will not risk my proposal while she is under the influence of this Dodd; he is, somehow or other, the cause of her coldness to me.” “Good heavens! why, she has been hermetically sealed against him ever so long,” cried Fountain, almost angrily. “I saw his sister come out of your gate only the other day. Sisters are emissaries--dangerous ones, too. Who knows? her very coldness may be vexation that this man is excluded. Perhaps she suspects me as the cause.” “These are chimeras--wild chimeras. My niece cares nothing for such people as the Dodds.” “I beg your pardon; these low attachments are the strongest. It is a notorious fact.”