This girl was so constituted that, except in the first flush of excitement incident to her entrance into this new sphere, she must have always some heart-warm thought, some little inner pleasure of her own, to make the larger one serve. Dosia knew now that she was to meet the true prince. This was the house he visited; all this outer circle of comfort was but the prelude to love—that mysterious and intangible love that made you happy ever after. She was glad that she had kept hold of that hand, and had not let herself be drawn away by lesser ties. Her day-dream was to bewitch and dazzle him, to compel him to her attraction; a dozen situations, based on that first idea of his recognition of her in some noble deed, occupied her happy mind; in all moments of extra exaltation she brought out the thought and played with it and hugged it to her. She had yet to learn how few things happen as we imagine them. In the midst of her half-drowsy musings, the door behind her burst open; suddenly a big collie-dog bounded in. He was licking her cheeks, when a sharp whistle called him back, and the door was instantly closed again. Dosia knew that the dog was Lawson’s. She sprang up and locked the door, but her dream had vanished. She had a tingling consciousness that she was to meet Lawson at dinner. She made up her mind to be very dignified and cool toward him; she rehearsed the manner in which her eyelashes would fall, the politely bored expression of her forced attention, the casual tips of her fingers as they touched his in the conventional handshake of greeting—all of which would emphasize the fact that he had now no particular interest for her, if, indeed, he had ever had any. But, after all, he was not at dinner, which was a relief, and yet a disappointment: when you have sharpened your weapons, it is only natural to want to use them. Lawson did not appear the next day, nor the next. Once she heard him coming in very late at night, and in the morning he had gone before she breakfasted. A couple of times in the late afternoon, when the dog came trotting ahead through the hall, she had slipped aside, breathless, as from some peril escaped. It was the third day after her arrival that he suddenly made his appearance in the drawing-room, where she was seated by the piano, looking over a pile of music. Mrs. Leverich was out driving, but had thought the air too damp for Dosia. She tried to accomplish the indifferent handshake she had prefigured, and could have flagellated herself for the color that she felt enveloping her from brow to throat under his cool, appraising eyes, as he bent over the piano as if to help her with her search. “What do you wish to find?” he asked in a businesslike way. “Perhaps I can assist you.” “Thank you, it isn’t necessary.” She held her head at an unresponsive angle involuntarily, so that she might not see his face, which had struck her as unexpectedly younger and better-looking than hitherto.