Ida Hayes, with the best grace in the world, sat down on the _tête-à-tête_ beside him. She was a belle and a beauty--had been for seven years, ever since she left the school-room at eighteen--and she could have been married well long ago, but she had seen no one she fancied until she met Eliot Van Zandt at her sister's wedding three years ago. Since then her heart, as well as Sylvie's, had been set on an alliance with him, and his marriage had been a bitter blow to her self-love. But she was a society woman. She did not wear her heart on her sleeve, and in the clear, pale-blue eyes upraised to his Eliot Van Zandt read no sign of her disappointed hopes. "I see you looking at my flowers. That dear little thing, your wife, gave them to me," she said, carelessly. He answered as carelessly: "Yes, and they harmonize well with your dress." But in his heart he longed to tear them from her breast and trample them beneath his feet. They had taught him a bitter lesson--one he would not soon forget. Dinner was announced, and he took Ida into the dining-room. Bryant gave Sylvie his arm, and Una followed with her sisters-in-law, hiding with a smile her pain at the preference Eliot had shown Miss Hayes. "How he must hate me, for he can not help thinking that but for me he would not have lost her. It was right to give her the flowers. She had really the best right to them," she said miserably to herself. The flowers, the lights, the china and silver of the well-appointed table flashed confusedly before her eyes. She could see nothing clearly but the pretty wax-doll face of Miss Hayes as she sat opposite to Eliot and talked to him incessantly. Glancing up and down the long table at the fair faces of the five ladies, she said, gayly: "Two gentlemen and five ladies! Only two have cavaliers. There are three of us too many." Una thought, with keen shame and inexpressible bitterness: "Only one too many, and that one is poor little me!" She made a great effort to eat, and swallowed some food, although it half choked her; but as soon as they rose from the table she slipped away and went up to the school-room, where Mrs. Wilson, whose impaired digestion abhorred late dinners, was placidly taking some milk and oatmeal by way of supper. "Oh, my dear, have you got a fever? Your eyes shine so brightly, and your cheeks are quite flushed!" exclaimed the good governess, anxiously. "I am not sick; I dare say I am excited. There is company, you know, and I thought I should not be missed if I stole away up here with you," Una answered, with affected carelessness. Mrs. Wilson smiled on her pupil, and answered, kindly: "I'm glad you came, dear; but, of course, you will be missed. Your husband would miss you, if there was a room full of company." Una answered in a strange tone: "No, not to-night; for Miss Ida Hayes is there."