revenge or anger. She was an accomplished
and systematic coquette ; and, having more
brains than heart, however mediocre her
endowments in either sense, she was perfectly
successful. She disliked Mr. Felton, because
he had never betrayed any admiration or even
consciousness of her beauty, and it was very
annoying, to a woman of her stamp to have
tried her arts unsuccessfully on an elderly man.
She had tried them merely in an idle hour, and
with the amiable purpose of enjoying the
novelty of such a conquest; but she had failed,
and she was irritated by her failure.

If Mr. Felton had even sheltered himself
behind the rampart of his years, it would have
been more tolerable— if he had extended a kind
of paternal protection to her, for instance. But
he did not; he simply paid her ordinary
attentions in his customary grave way, whenever he
was brought in contact with her, and, for the
rest, calmly ignored her. When his son
appeared in her train, she had not the satisfaction
of believing she could make the father wretched
by encouraging him. Mr. Felton had graver
cause than any she could help to procure for
him, for disapproval of his son's conduct in
most respects. She counted for nothing in the
sum of his dissatisfaction, but she certainly
became more distasteful to him when she was
added to the number of its components. Mark
Felton had wounded the sensitive self-love of a
woman who knew no deeper passion. She was
animated by genuine spite towards him, when
she declined to accede to his request for an
immediate interview.

By what feeling was Stewart Routh, who was
with her when she received Mr. Felton's note,
and who strongly urged the answer she sent to
it, actuated? He would have found it difficult
to tell. Not jealousy; the tone in which she
had spoken of Arthur Felton precluded that
feeling. Routh had felt that it was genuine, even
while he knew that this woman was deliberately
enslaving him, and therefore was naturally
suspicious of every tone in which she spoke of any
one. But his judgment was not yet entirely
clouded by passion; he had felt, in their brief
conversation relative to Arthur Felton, that her
tone had been true. He hated George Dallas
now; he did not deceive himself about that.
There was a vague dread and trouble in his
thoughts concerning the young man. Once he
had only despised him. He no longer despised
him; but he hated him instead. And this
hatred, further reaching than love, included all
who were connected with George, and especially
Mr. Felton, whose grave and distant manner,
whose calm and penetrating glance, conveyed
keen offence to Stewart Routh. They had not
spoken of the matter to each other; but Routh
had felt, as soon and as strongly as Harriet, that
his influence over Dallas was at an end. As it
happened, he had successfully used that influence
for the last time in which he could foresee any
need for its employment, and therefore Mr.
Felton had not done him any practical injury; but
that did not matter: he hated him all the same.

He had watched the smile with which Mrs.
P. Ireton Bembridge read Mr. Felton's note,
a little anxiously. He did not dare to ask
her from whom the missive came, but she
graciously gave him the information.

"He wants to see me, to find out Master
Arthur's doings," she said, with a ringing
mischievous laugh. "Not that I know anything
about him since he left Paris, and I shall have
to look serious and listen to more preaching
than goes well with the sunshine of to-day. It's
rather a nuisance;" and the lady pouted her
scarlet lips very effectively.

"Don't see him," said Routh, as he leant
forward and gazed at her with eager admiration.
"Don't see him. Don't lose this beautiful day,
or any part of it, for him. You can't give him
any real information."

"Except that his son is coming here," she
said, slyly.

"I forgot," said Stewart Routh, as he rose
and walked moodily to the window.

Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge smiled a little
triumphantly, and said gaily: " He shall wait
for the news. I dare say it will be quite as
welcome to-morrow."

"Don't say to-morrow, either," said Routh,
approaching her again, as she seated herself at
her writing-table, and bending so as to look
into her eyes.

"Why?" she asked, as she selected a pen.

"Because I must go away on Thursday. I
have an appointment, a man to meet at Frankfort.
I shall be away all day. Let this anxious
parent come to you in my absence; don't waste
the time upon him."

"And if the time does not seem so wonderfully
precious to me, what then?" said the lady,
looking straight at him, and giving to her voice
a truly irresistible charm, a tone in which the
least possible rebuke of his presumption was
mingled with the subtlest encouragement.
"What then?" she repeated. ("Decidedly,
he is dreadfully in earnest," she thought.)

"Then," said Routh, in a low hoarse voice,
"then I do not say you are deceiving me, but I
am deceiving myself."

So Mr. Felton received the answer to his note,
and found that he must wait until the following
Thursday.

People talked about Mrs. P. Ireton
Bembridge at Homburg as they had talked about
her at New York and at Paris, at Florence and
at Naples; in fact, in every place where she
had shone and sparkled, distributed her flashing
glances, and dispensed her apparently
inexhaustible dollars. They talked of her at all the
places of public resort, and in all the private
circles. Mr. Felton was eagerly questioned
about his beautiful compatriot by the people
whom he met at the springs and in the gardens,
and even by the visitors to Mr. and Mrs.
Carruthers. Probably he did not know much about
her; certainly he said liltle. She was a widow,
without near relations, childless, and possessed
of a large fortune. There, was no doubt at all
about that. Was she "received" in her own