The gong had sounded. He gave Mrs. Hennifer his arm, and Cynthia went before them, glancing back over her shoulder as she talked, and giving them glimpses of the eyes whose brightness was again shadowed by that indefinable haze of happy abstraction which had startled them all the moment they saw her. It was so new, so significant, that it told more than she was likely to do by words. Mrs. Hennifer, on her own part, hoped for enlightening confidences. Cynthia, however, said nothing. The Admiral had a long talk with her, and found her proudly resolute on the main point, but reticent as to details. To her the matter was simple, possessing only such rudimentary elements as a child might invest its joys with. She believed, she trusted, she loved. Somehow, as the Admiral listened, his memory recurred to the old Lindley Murray parsing days at Mrs. Marlowe's knee. Of course he was all they could wish--well, what was he? Had he family, or fortune, or irreproachable moral character? She did not know. But she was sure he had not known she was an heiress. The Kerrs had told him nothing--in fact Theo had told her he had asked nothing; she was dressing in the most simple fashion; she had had no idea he had been attracted until he proposed; he was very quiet--and here she broke off, turning her head aside to hide her blush, and murmuring something about 'contrasts, and she was such a chatterbox herself.' The Admiral said little but that he did not wish to hear from Danby at once. He asked her not to receive letters or to write until he gave permission. She was amenable, but it rose from the docility of absolute confidence in another and knowledge of herself. Then she returned to her old routine--driving with Mrs. Marlowe, riding with the Admiral, walking with her stag-hound. She had all her friends to see. Every one was curious to see her. She was so gay and bright that they scarcely believed her heart was not with them and their interests wholly, as of old. But she wore a ring, a cameo of a Greek head, which, though not significant of more than remembrance, was not a Marlowe heirloom. The Admiral noticed it, but did not venture to ask where she had bought it. And sometimes she would suddenly become silent, and her eyes dilated and became luminous with thought that hovered on the verge of happy dreams. Once during a walk in Zante, when Danby joined them, she had been in so blithe a mood that at last she began to excuse herself. But he would not hear her. 'It is natural for a guileless heart to be gay; let love subdue it,' he said. The words had delighted her in her ignorance; how much more now? CHAPTER XI NEW LIGHTS ON OLD SUBJECTS