swings back, and Silvia Fleming comes into the room, and, without looking about her, sits down with her back to me in a low chair. Her hair is hanging down her back in thick curls; she wears a plain white wrapper, that by its severity makes her beauty more than ever conspicuous.
There is a listless droop about the whole figure as she leans back with her arms clasped under her head. She has not been seated there twenty seconds, when the door opens, and 'Captain Chichester" is announced: he is tall, languid, blasé, but his steps and face quicken as he spies the recumbent figure in the red velvet chair.
"How do you do?” he says, stooping over her and holding out his hand; but she does not put out hers; she only looks up at him with a lazy look of welcome-provocation, which is it?
"Too hot!" she says; "would not one think it August instead of September?"
He sits down beside her, and they talk in low voices. They do not seem to know any one is present; however, as I cannot hear what they are saying, it is somewhat unnecessary for me to announce myself, though indeed I am not anxious to play the degrading part of eavesdropper again, as I did a week ago.
Is yonder coquette the passionate, despairing woman that Paul Vasher kissed a while ago so hotly? Was it but a fine piece of acting—her love and her misery? For surely, surely she is acting her own proper character at this moment? No, she was not acting then, but she was taken out of herself for the time; and Paul's estimate of her is the right one, the taint of infidelity in her nature is too deep to permit her to be either a good or a faithful woman. Admiration is meat and drink to her, flattery the very air she breathes; no man could keep this woman straight any more than a rope can be made of sand. She does not love this man to whom she is talking, does not even admire him, but she will fool him to
