The author responded at once to this challenge with an eagerly indignant denial, and Fox found himself again slightly detached from the group and still standing beside his hostess. She had been taking no part in the conversation and seemed to be in a dreamy mood which ignored alike her environment and her social duties. There was always something in Margaret’s aspect which differentiated her from other people, a spiritual aloofness from the passing moment which could fall upon her suddenly, even in her wildest and gayest moods, and which always carried with it a mystical, uninterpreted suggestion of some tragic destiny, which cast a long shadow before it across the unthinking sybaritism of her life. “It seems some time since I saw you last,” said Fox; “the House has been very exacting lately and abominably dull. What have you been doing with yourself?” “Oh, learning to dance,” she replied, “I’m to be a Merry Andrew now, you know, for the delectation of the dear public. Wicklow insists that I must have public receptions; good heavens, what an endless bore!” Fox smiled. “He takes it seriously then, I see! We must look higher, in that case; you may as well study for the White House rôle at once.” Margaret laughed derisively, glancing across at her husband who was leaning over Mrs. Osborne’s chair with a quite apparent air of absorption. “Look at them!” she mocked, her eyes gleaming with malicious mischief; “see the pose; Lily Osborne is playing now for a Madame d’Épinay; she discusses French literature and the philosophers. Can you imagine Wicklow as Jean Jacques? I must get him a black cloak!” Fox laughed involuntarily, but said nothing; Margaret’s free speech sometimes offended his finer discrimination, and the notion of criticizing White to White’s wife did not coincide with his masculine code. “I heard that Mrs. Osborne won the cup at the fencing contest,” he remarked, after a moment. “She did; Wicklow gave it, you know,” Margaret smiled sarcastically. Then she looked at him suddenly. “Where did you dine to-night?--with Allestree?” “No, at the club. I really didn’t understand that I was expected here.” “I must have forgotten how to write notes, or I have too much else to say to you. I’m going to let Bobby Allestree paint my portrait; you know he’s been trying to do it for years.” Fox smiled. “I admire Allestree’s work,” he said, “but there are limitations; one can’t paint intangible sprites.” “Do you mean to infer that I’m not human?” she retorted with a frown; “wait and see how beautiful I shall be.” “You don’t really want compliments from me, Margaret?” She was silent a moment, then she lifted her softest glance to his face, her own pensive again and slightly shadowed with thought. “No, I don’t!” she said abruptly, “I don’t think I should believe in them--it makes me shiver sometimes to even imagine what you must think of me!”