"This must be very bad for your health,"--I said, drawing my chair closer to hers--"Can you not get away for a change?" She looked at me in silence. The expression of her eyes thrilled me strangely,--it was not tender or wistful, but fierce, passionate and commanding. "I saw Miss Chesney for a few moments just now"--I resumed,--"She seemed very unhappy." "She has nothing to be unhappy about--" said Sibyl coldly--"except the time my mother takes in dying. But she is young; she can afford to wait a little for the Elton coronet." "Is not----may not this be a mistaken surmise of yours?" I ventured gently--"Whatever her faults, I think the girl admires and loves you." She smiled scornfully. "I want neither her love nor her admiration,"--she said--"I have few women-friends and those few are all hypocrites whom I mistrust. When Diana Chesney is my step-mother, we shall still be strangers." I felt I was on delicate ground, and that I could not continue the conversation without the risk of giving offence. "Where is _your_ friend?" asked Sibyl suddenly, apparently to change the subject--"Why does he so seldom come here now?" "Rimânez? Well, he is a very queer fellow, and at times takes an abhorrence for all society. He frequently meets your father at the club, and I suppose his reason for not coming here is that he hates women." "All women?" she queried with a little smile. "Without exception!" "Then he hates me?" "I did not say that--" I answered quickly--"No one could hate you, Lady Sibyl,--but truly, as far as Prince Rimânez is concerned, I expect he does not abate his aversion to womankind (which is his chronic malady) even for you." "So he will never marry?" she said musingly. I laughed. "Oh, never! That you may be quite sure of." Still playing with the roses near her, she relapsed into silence. Her breath came and went quickly; I saw her long eyelashes quiver against the pale rose-leaf tint of her cheeks,--the pure outline of her delicate profile suggested to my mind one of Fra Angelico's meditative saints or angels. All at once, while I yet watched her admiringly, she suddenly sprang erect, crushing a rose in her hand,--her head thrown back, her eyes flashing, her whole frame trembling. "Oh, I cannot bear it!" she cried wildly--"I cannot bear it!" I started up astonished, and confronted her. "Sibyl!"