"_Voila_, Adolph!" cried Pixie triumphantly. "Me I have seen a hundred men, but a hundred, all the same as thou every day I promenade me in Paris!" And Jack smiled and, to Bridgie's surprise, allowed himself to be disfigured without a protest--a surprising thing when a pretty girl was among the spectators. When the hairdressing operations were concluded, he held Pixie's hand in his own, as if unwilling to let her go, and turned towards Sylvia with a smile. "I think your aunt quite enjoyed giving me a lesson, and I was very much interested in her original system of book-keeping. What a wonderful old dear she is, so energetic and full of interest in her fellow-creatures! I must go to see her again, and have a game of cribbage, which appears to be her pet dissipation. I'm fond of old people, but I daresay they get a little trying if you have no variety. If I relieve guard sometimes, it will set you free to have a chat with the girls!" Was he sarcastic? Was he paying her back in her own coin? Sylvia stared dumbly, but could see no hidden meaning in the glance which met hers so frankly. "Thanks awfully. You are kind!" she cried with enthusiasm, but in her heart she thought the kindness the most cruel treatment she had ever experienced. As soon as she could leave naturally she rose to say good-bye, and then came a fresh blow, for, instead of escorting her across the road as he had insisted on doing hitherto, Jack kept his arm round Pixie's shoulder, and deputed Pat to take his place. "Now, then, you lazy fellow, get your hat, and see Miss Trevor home!" Pat was delighted, and after all it was natural enough that Jack should not care to turn out in the cold so soon after coming in, and yet--and yet--Sylvia stood at her bedroom window looking at the lights across the road, and as she looked they grew strangely dull and faint. Triumphs are dearly won sometimes, and her mood to-night was the reverse of victorious. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. AT THE CIRCUS. Mamzelle Paddy began and continued her work in the Wallace nursery with complete satisfaction to all concerned. Esmeralda, it is true, had surpassed herself in violence of diction in the letter which came in answer to the one breaking the news; but while Bridgie shed tears of distress, and Jack frowned impatience, the person against whom the hurricane of invective was hurled, received it with unruffled and even sympathetic composure. As Pixie read over the crowded sheets her eye flashed approval of dramatic points, she set her lips, and wagged her head, entering so thoroughly into the spirit of the writer that she unconsciously adopted her manner when aroused, and when the concluding words were read, heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction. "She'll feel a lot better after that!" she remarked tersely, and the prophecy could not fail to be comforting to those who knew Mrs Hilliard's temperament.