more do you want, Jenny? You are so speculative about things."
"I love Dolly," she replied, "with all my heart and soul, and if she were not happy in her marriage it would break my heart."
"I know, I know," said Walter, "and it would compel me to drink more than would be good for me, I am sure; but she will be happy; there are various ideas of happiness—to be good is to be happy, the poet says; angels are happier than men, because they are better, don't you agree with that sentiment?"
No reply.
Walter looked up from his bed at the other end of the room. Jenny was in another world; prose and poetry were all one to her, as Dolly had been saying of something else—she was asleep.
"Good-night," said Walter in a whisper; "I think we are having a very pleasant time."
Philip Forsyth was trying to think so, too. But there was a shadow upon his reflections ; he had got rid of it so long as Dolly and the rest were with him so long as he could talk so long as there was change of scene and subject; but now that he was alone he was once more back in London; once more with the Countess Stravensky; once more under the influence of her violet eyes; once more listening to her deep, sweet voice; once more at her feet morally, poetically, and to his own satisfaction. He tried to shake the pleasant shadow off; tried to think it was not pleasant ; tried to eclipse it with the face of Dolly; tried to exercise it with the repetition of his vows of love to Dolly, and with his later vows made to himself to be true to Dolly, to love and esteem her, and to forget the woman of the opera-box except as a model, an idea, an artistic accessory, a something outside the affections, a mere acquaintance; but the god or demon who is sup-
