All through dinner I try to attract Bebe's attention, but cannot. I address her, only to receive the coldest of replies. Even afterwards, when we get back once more to the drawing-room, I cannot manage an explanation, as she escapes to her own room, and does not appear again until the gentlemen have joined us. Neither she nor Lord Chandos exchange one word with each other throughout the entire evening. With a sort of feverish gayety she chatters to young Thornton, to Captain Jenkins, to any one who may chance to be near her, as though she fears a silence. Nevertheless the minutes drag. It is the stupidest night we have known, and I begin to wish I had learned whist or chess or something of that sort. I am out of spirits and though innocent of what it may be, feel myself guilty of some hideous blunder. Presently the dreaded quiet falls. The whist-players are happy, the rest of us are not. Sir Mark, with grave politeness, comes to the rescue. "Perhaps Mr. Thornton will kindly favor us with a song?" he says, without a smile. And Mr. Thornton, with a face even more than usually benign, willingly consents, and gives us. "What will you do, love, when I am going?"--_a propos_ of his approaching departure for India--with much sentimental fervor, and many tender glances directed openly at Miss Beatoun. "Thank you," murmurs that young lady, when the doleful ditty is finished, having listened to it all through with an air of saddened admiration impossible to describe, and unmistakably flattering. "I know no song that touches me so deeply as that." "I know you are laughing at me," says Chips, frankly, seating himself again beside her, and sinking his voice to a whisper that he fondly but erroneously believes to be inaudible; "but I don't care. I would rather have you to make fun of me than any other girl to love me!" Could infatuation further go? "Perhaps one might find it possible to do both," insinuates Miss Beatoun, wickedly; but, this piece of flagrant hypocrisy proving to much even for her, she raises her fan to a level with her lips and subsides with an irrepressible smile behind it, while poor little Chips murmurs:-- "Oh, come, now. That is more than any fellow would believe, you know," and grins a pleased and radiant grin. Bebe, being asked to sing, refuses, gently but firmly; and when I have delighted my audience with one or two old English ballads, we give in, and think with animation of our beds. In the corridor above I seize hold of Bebe. "What has vexed you?" I ask, anxiously. "Why are you not friends with me? You _must_ come to my room before you go to bed. Promise." "Very good. I will come," quietly disengaging my hand. Then, before closing the door, "Indeed, Phyllis, I think you might have told me," she says, in a tone of deep reproach. So that is it! But surely she must have seen his coming so unexpectedly was a great surprise. And is there a romance connected with her and Lord Chandos?