At the thought of her husband her face hardened. Very contemptuous did she wax in her merciless comparison of him with the stalwart young fellow sitting there so lordly in the arrogance of lusty manliness. Now that it was too late she realized that she had sold herself for a price! Of course Brevoort had paid, generously, magnificently, and without demur; but how had she benefited thereby? To the end only of being the leader of her social set, queen regnant of a symposium of sexless degenerates with whom she had not one mental or physical desire in common! The best proof of it was that she was here, far from their wearying inanities and hollow gilded gauds by deliberate choice. Her meditations terminated abruptly at this point; was that the real reason of her coming? She turned to him with a curious shyness, thankful for that rose-colored globe. "You are fond of children, Mr. Douglass?" It was more an assertion than a question. His face lit up rarely. "I love them!" he said, simply. "They are the sweetest flowers in God's garden!" "Even as I do!" There was something strangely like a sob in her low voice, but she had not meant him to hear. "I congratulate you on your conquest of the little Blount girl; her adoration of you is actually idyllic!" "Oh, Eulalie and I have been sweethearts for ages," he said, laughingly. "It was a case of love at first sight." "Happy Eulalie!" she said, enviously. "She has been favored beyond the computation of the gods. That beatitude falls to the lot of but few of her sex." "Are you voicing a personal grievance?" His eyes were full of amused incredulity. She smiled a little bitterly but evaded his question. "What do you hear from Grace?" she asked, inconsequentially. He was sobered instantly. "She is well; and enjoying herself, I gather from her last letter. They are on the wing constantly, you know, and it was unusually short. They are now headed for Venice, with a certain Lord Ellerslie in train. Do you happen to know him?" There was a mild anxiety in his tone. "Yare Ellerslie? Yes, I know him very well. One of England's 'best' types; a fine gentleman of mildewed lineage. He Is immensely wealthy!" "Oh! I say, don't rub it into a fellow!" he protested, laughingly, but his eyes held a glitter that caught Constance's attention disagreeably. She rather pitied Lord Ellerslie at that moment. "Oh! he is perfectly innocuous," she hastened to assure him; "nearly every designing mamma has given him up as impossible. His price is above the rubies of any woman's offering!" Her lip curled scornfully. "His _metier_ is platonics." "And you don't believe in their possibility," he concluded, dryly. She eyed him narrowly. "Do you?" "Not in their putative purity at any event. Of course, I am not a competent authority and my circle of acquaintances is limited to people of flesh and blood. Imagine such an absurdity as platonics between--" "Between--?" she prompted audaciously, her seductive face close his.