George Fairfax, in this evening dress, looked supremely handsome. It is a poor thing, of course, in man or woman, this beauty; but it has its charm nevertheless, and in the being who is loved for other and far higher qualities, the charm is tenfold. Few women perhaps have ever fallen in love with a man on account of his good looks; they leave such weak worship for the stronger sex; but having loved him for some other indefinable reason, are not indifferent to the attraction of splendid eyes or a faultless profile. Clarissa trembled a little as she held out her hand to be clasped in George Fairfax's strong fingers, the quiet pressure whereof seemed to say, "You _know_ that you and I are something more to each other than the world supposes." She could not meet him without betraying, by some faint sign, that there was neither forgetfulness nor indifference in her mind as to the things that concerned him. Her late partner--a youthful secretary of legation, with straw-coloured hair and an incipient moustache--murmured something civil, and slid away, leaving those two alone beside the arum lily, or as much alone as they could be in a place, where the guests were circulating freely, and about half-a-dozen flirtations ripening amidst the shining foliage of orange-trees and camellias. "I thought I should meet you here to-night," he said. "I came here in the hope of meeting you." She was not an experienced woman of the world, skilled in the art of warding off such a speech as this. She had never flirted in her life, and sorely felt the want of that facility which comes from long practice. "Have you seen my husband?" she asked, awkwardly enough, in her distress. "I did not come to see Mr. Granger. It was the hope of seeing you that brought me here. I am as great a fool as I was at Hale Castle, you see, Clarissa. There are some follies of which a man cannot cure himself." "Mr. Fairfax!" She looked up at him gravely, reproachfully, with as much anger as she could bring herself to feel against him; but as their eyes met, something in his--a look that told too plainly of passion and daring--made her eyelids fall, and she stood before him trembling like a frightened child. And this moment was perhaps the turning-point in Clarissa's life--the moment in which she took the first step on the wrong road that was to lead her so far away from the sacred paths of innocence and peace. George Fairfax drew her hand through his arm--she had neither strength nor resolution to oppose him--and led her away to the quietest corner of the colonnade--a recess sheltered by orange-trees, and provided with a rustic bench.