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Tone and words so completely excluded her from the new intimacy into which she had inificance froirl, then, of who to say? What was she to him? What could she be to him--an actress, a woman of common antecedents?

She had sometimes idly speculated in an indefinitely innocent way as to just what a well-born man could find to interest him in such women; what he could have to talk about to persons of that sort, where co

Gossip, scandal of that nature, hints, silences, innuendoes, the wise shrugs of young girls oversophisticated, the cool, hard smiles of matrons, all had left her indifferent or bored, partly from distaste, partly from sheer incredulity; a refusal to understand, an innate delicacy that not only refrains from comprehension, but also denies itself even the curiosity to inquire or the teuest surmise on a subject that could not exist for her

But now, so of the uncomfortable uneasiness had come over her which she had been conscious of when e's worldly wisdom, and which had imperceptibly chilled her when Grace Ferrall spoke of Siward's escapade, coupling this woranted that there ured publicly behind the foot-lights, though it appeared very silly to her In fact it all was silly and undignified--part and parcel, no doubt, of that undergraduate foolishness which see to some men who had otherwise attained discretion

But it appeared to her that Siward had taken the matter with a seriousness entirely out of proportion in his curt closure of the subject, and she felt a little irritated, a little hue in a silence that he did not offer to break

Early twilight had fallen in the roorew redder

"Sylvia," he said abruptly, reverting to the old, light tone hinting of the laughter in his eyes which she could no longer see, "Suppose, as you suggested, I did ambush you--say after the opera--seize you under the very nose of your escort and make madly for a hansom?"

"I know of no other way," she said demurely

"Would you resist, physically?"

"I would, if nobody were looking"

"Desperately?

"How do I know? Besides, it couldn't last long," she said, thinking of his sli costu she could resist hithened to the perfection of health in saddle and afoot