ton, bluntly," that you break men's hearts because you cannot break their heads."

She uttered a low, sweet peal of laughter.

That is a terse and epigrammatic way of summing the matter up; and perhaps it is a true one. But do you believe in broken hearts, Colonel Thurston? Honestly, I do not. Fancy may be disappointed and vanity mortified, but a broken heart is a phenomenon I have never seen."

"Probably you have never seen it because you did not care to recognize it," said Thurston; and so deep was the wrath which he felt that his voice sounded as never man's voice had sounded before in Agatha Loring's ears.

She gazed at him in surprise, waving a fan back and forth in a hand so white and slender that he was constrained to observe it.

"Perhaps you are right," she said, after a moment's pause. "Sympathy is sometimes necessary for comprehension, and I confess I have no sympathy with maladies of the heart."

Her companion arched his dark, delicately-penciled brows. "I hardly know whether to pity his obtuseness or admire his temerity most," he said. "That mortal man should venture to disapprove of la belle des belles, and-height of audacity!-tell her so!"

"It does seem bad taste, does it not? But it is a consolation to feel that I have your good opinion to fall back upon."

Virien was too well trained for his reply to be audible at two paces distant, but it is very easy to imagine what turn the conversation took after that.

Fifteen minutes later Mrs. Jennings went out on the dusky, flower-scented piazza, and, after looking round her for a moment, perceived the dark outlines of two figures and the glow of two cigars at the far end. She at once walked thither.

"A woman!" she repeated. "Well, yes, I cannot deny the fact; and yet I often feel inclined to echo Clytemnestra's words:

.. You great gods,

Why did you fashion nie in this soft mould?
Give me these lengths of silky hair? these hands
Too delicately dimpled? and these arms

Too white, too weak? yet leave the man's heart in me
To mar your masterpiece?'

Now, if you think me ridiculously mock-heroic, you will at least not think that I flatter myself, Colonel Thurston, since Clytemnestra was not an estimable character?"

"I think that you may find your woman's heart some day, Miss Loring," he said, "and then you may learn a better appreciation of the suffering you now regard so lightly."

He rose as he spoke, for he felt that he had had enough of this, and Virien was approaching with his eloquent eyes and finely-outlined face-the most irresistible of heroes of flirtation.

Thurston gave a glance at him as he walked away -a critical glance, which the creole naturally failed to understand, since he could not possibly be aware that the other was wondering if he was the man destined to teach Agatha Loring that she had a woman's heart. "Mrs. Jennings says that he is a noted flirt," the soldier grimly thought. "I would give all I possess if he would flirt with this woman and make her feel what she has inflicted so mercilessly on others."

"Monsieur le Colonel is jealous already," Virien said, with a laugh, as he sank down by Miss Loring's side. "His subjugation is accomplished, I perceive, even in this short time."

Loring?"

"She has come specially to ask you that," said Mr. Jennings, with a laugh.

Thurston, who had risen at her approach, answered with the quiet decision of a man who does not need to hesitate over his opinion:

"I think that Miss Loring is a practised coquette and a thorough actress. Like all women of her type, her vanity is so great that she would ensnare every man who approaches her if she could; but it strikes me with wonder that such a woman can win the admiration of any man, even for an hour."

III.

TIME flies fast in a pleasant country-house full of gay young people, and Sans-Souci was one of the pleasantest of houses, its owners the most charming of hosts. What with rides and drives, music, visits, and boating, time flew almost too fast for some of the inmates-for those whose stay was limited, for those who found that long rides in green woods and voluptuous summer nights among the roses led to results more serious than flirtation. The number of matches which had been made at Sans-Souci was a source of great pride to Mrs. Jennings, who was a confirmed match-maker. All men of marriageable age and marriageable means who fell into her hands she regarded with an eye to matrimony, and she never failed to offer them excellent opportunities to exchange the single for the wedded state.

It was not likely that, under these circumstances, she would neglect the interests of the cousin who, in what she felt to be a truly pathetic condition of loneliness, had drifted into her hands. On the day after his arrival she informed him, with a significance which was altogether wasted on his obtuseness, that Mary Herbert was one of the most charming girls

Mrs. Jennings knew spoke volumes for her belief in her own sex), and would make the best of wives for any man who was fortunate enough to secure her.

To this Thurston cheerfully assented, though the idea of becoming that happy Benedict did not for a moment occur to him; but he did not rebel when he found himself constantly in Miss Herbert's company during the next few days. She was a pretty, pleas- | ant, well-bred girl, who entertained him sufficiently to keep ennui at bay, and who taught him (the dullest of pupils) the abstruse science called croquet.

Being in the same house with Miss Loring, and sitting at the same table with her three times a day, not to speak of other occasions of meeting, it was impossible that he could altogether ignore her pres

ence.

In fact, that presence was not one which could readily be ignored. Whether for good or ill, for pleasure or pain, Agatha Loring was a person who, under all circumstances and at all times, commanded attention at least. Bitterly as Thurston hated her, he found his glance following the motions of her graceful figure; he found his ear attracted by the full, sweet music of her tones; he found his eye resting, with a mixture of reluctant admiration and repulsion, on the perfect outlines of her head, with its dark braids. He could not fail to perceive that there was a distinctive charm about her which marked her out and set her apart from other women. What can we call this charm, which is so fine that it eludes all analysis in words? Whatever we call it-personal magnetism, fascination, or aught else—the fact remains that it is a special gift, a crowning grace of some women, and that too often it is ruthlessly used for purposes of harm only.

It was impossible for Agatha Loring's best friends to deny that she had used it with a cruel recklessness which sometimes seemed like the wanton mischief of a child; while dark were the tales her enemies told of the lives she had wrecked, the hearts she had broken. After the manner of most women of her class, she was very capricious in her fancies, and a man's best fortune often lay in not possessing interest enough in her eyes to make it worth her while to fascinate him. Let his social rank, wealth, or power, be what it would, if he did not possess this interest, she paid no regard to him. If, on the contrary, she conceived a caprice in his favor, nothing satisfied her save his complete subjection.

A fancy of this description she had taken to Thurston at once, and when she saw his deliberate intention to avoid her-when she read accurately enough the scarcely-veiled dislike and contempt he felt for her-pique came to the aid of caprice, and she determined to bring such a stout rebel to her feet.

"My dear," she said one afternoon, when Mrs. Jennings sought her room during the siesta hour, 'what is the reason that your Egyptian cousin dislikes me so much?"

ine' that Colonel Thurston dislikes me-I know it. Do you remember when you introduced him to me? Before we had either of us uttered a word, his eyes told me what his sentiments toward me were. Have I injured him in any past state of existence, or what is the reason of his dislike?"

"I suppose he has heard of all your wicked coquetries, and disapproves of them-as well he may," said Mrs. Jennings, who had by this time recovered her self-possession. "He is a wise man not to give you a chance to win his heart, for if he did he would fare no better than others have done."

Miss Loring laughed softly.

"We shall see!" she said. "A challenge is something I could never brook, and I have taken a fancy to his face and manner. He seems so frank, so honest, so brave-I should like him for a friend."

"A friend!" Mrs. Jennings scornfully repeated. 'Agatha, I am ashamed of you! Why not call a spade a spade, and say at once that you want to make a fool of him?"

"Because that is not what I want. I am tired of making fools of men-oh, you may raise your hands if you like; I am tired of all such folly. I don't say I could live without it-I don't say I shall not be a coquette till I die—but I do say that sometimes I would like to feel that I had one honest, genuine friend in the world, and such a friend this man could be. I can see in his face that he would go through fire and water for any one for whom he -cared."

ter.

"I think he would," said Mrs. Jennings, “but he will never go through fire and water for you, and the sooner you put such ideas out of your head the betHe is not the kind of man whom you can fascinate, and as for friendship, that, of course, is stuff! Content yourself with men who belong to your own world, like Antoine Virien, and let my Egyptian cousin alone."

"My dear, do you know that every word you utter gives me an additional reason for overcoming the prejudice that your Egyptian cousin appears to have conceived against me?"

Agatha, I think you are the most heartless girl and the greatest bundle of contradictions I ever knew!" cried Mrs. Jennings, thoroughly vexed. "If you will have the truth-though I was asked not to tell you-you have already inflicted pain enough on Philip Thurston—”

Tap, tap, at the door, and a domestic summons took Mrs. Jennings away at once, leaving her sentence unfinished.

Agatha made no effort to detain her; but, after the door closed, she said to herself:

"Strange! What possible pain have I ever inflicted on Philip Thurston? And she was asked not to tell me. Well, I shall not tempt her to betray his confidence, but I will seek information at the fountain-head."

Though usually one of the last of the feminine band to appear, Miss Loring broke through her habit this afternoon, and half an hour before the dinnerbell rang she swept lightly down the broad staircase,

ton, bluntly, "that you break men's hearts because you cannot break their heads."

She uttered a low, sweet peal of laughter. "That is a terse and epigrammatic way of summing the matter up; and perhaps it is a true one. But do you believe in broken hearts, Colonel Thurston? Honestly, I do not. Fancy may be disappointed and vanity mortified, but a broken heart is a phenomenon I have never seen."

"Probably you have never seen it because you did not care to recognize it," said Thurston; and so deep was the wrath which he felt that his voice sounded as never man's voice had sounded before in Agatha Loring's ears.

She gazed at him in surprise, waving a fan back and forth in a hand so white and slender that he was constrained to observe it.

"Perhaps you are right," she said, after a moment's pause. "Sympathy is sometimes necessary for comprehension, and I confess I have no sympathy with maladies of the heart."

Her companion arched his dark, delicately-penciled brows. "I hardly know whether to pity his obtuseness or admire his temerity most," he said. "That mortal man should venture to disapprove of la belle des belles, and-height of audacity!-tell her so!"

"It does seem bad taste, does it not? But it is a consolation to feel that I have your good opinion to fall back upon."

Virien was too well trained for his reply to be audible at two paces distant, but it is very easy to imagine what turn the conversation took after that.

Fifteen minutes later Mrs. Jennings went out on the dusky, flower-scented piazza, and, after looking round her for a moment, perceived the dark outlines of two figures and the glow of two cigars at the far end. She at once walked thither.

"I thought I should find you both here," she said. -"Cameron, are you not ashamed to carry Cousin Philip off in this way? The girls are all anxious to cultivate his acquaintance.-By-the-by," she added,

Now, if you think me ridiculously mock-heroic, you will at least not think that I flatter myself, Colonel Thurston, since Clytemnestra was not an estimable character?"

"I think that you may find your woman's heart some day, Miss Loring," he said, "and then you may learn a better appreciation of the suffering you now regard so lightly."

He rose as he spoke, for he felt that he had had enough of this, and Virien was approaching with his eloquent eyes and finely-outlined face-the most irresistible of heroes of flirtation.

Thurston gave a glance at him as he walked away -a critical glance, which the creole naturally failed to understand, since he could not possibly be aware that the other was wondering if he was the man destined to teach Agatha Loring that she had a woman's heart. "Mrs. Jennings says that he is a noted flirt," the soldier grimly thought. “I would give all I possess if he would flirt with this woman and make her feel what she has inflicted so mercilessly on others."

"Monsieur le Colonel is jealous already," Virien said, with a laugh, as he sank down by Miss Loring's side. "His subjugation is accomplished, I perceive, even in this short time."

Loring?"

'She has come specially to ask you that," said Mr. Jennings, with a laugh.

Thurston, who had risen at her approach, answered with the quiet decision of a man who does not need to hesitate over his opinion:

"I think that Miss Loring is a practised coquette and a thorough actress. Like all women of her type, her vanity is so great that she would ensnare every man who approaches her if she could; but it strikes me with wonder that such a woman can win the admiration of any man, even for an hour."

III.

TIME flies fast in a pleasant country-house full of gay young people, and Sans-Souci was one of the pleasantest of houses, its owners the most charming of hosts. What with rides and drives, music, visits, and boating, time flew almost too fast for some of the inmates-for those whose stay was limited, for those who found that long rides in green woods and voluptuous summer nights among the roses led to results more serious than flirtation. The number of matches which had been made at Sans-Souci was a source of great pride to Mrs. Jennings, who was a confirmed match-maker. All men of marriageable age and marriageable means who fell into her hands she regarded with an eye to matrimony, and she never failed to offer them excellent opportunities to exchange the single for the wedded state.

It was not likely that, under these circumstances, she would neglect the interests of the cousin who, in what she felt to be a truly pathetic condition of loneliness, had drifted into her hands. On the day after his arrival she informed him, with a significance which was altogether wasted on his obtuseness, that Mary Herbert was one of the most charming girls

Mrs. Jennings knew spoke volumes for her belief in her own sex), and would make the best of wives for any man who was fortunate enough to secure her.

To this Thurston cheerfully assented, though the idea of becoming that happy Benedict did not for a moment occur to him ; but he did not rebel when he found himself constantly in Miss Herbert's company during the next few days. She was a pretty, pleasant, well-bred girl, who entertained him sufficiently to keep ennui at bay, and who taught him (the dullest of pupils) the abstruse science called croquet.

Being in the same house with Miss Loring, and sitting at the same table with her three times a day, not to speak of other occasions of meeting, it was impossible that he could altogether ignore her presence. In fact, that presence was not one which could readily be ignored. Whether for good or ill, for pleasure or pain, Agatha Loring was a person who, under all circumstances and at all times, commanded attention at least. Bitterly as Thurston hated her, he found his glance following the motions of her graceful figure; he found his ear attracted by the full, sweet music of her tones; he found his eye resting, with a mixture of reluctant admiration and repulsion, on the perfect outlines of her head, with its dark braids. He could not fail to perceive that there was a distinctive charm about her which marked her out and set her apart from other women. What can we call this charm, which is so fine that it eludes all analysis in words? Whatever we call it-personal magnetism, fascination, or aught else—the fact remains that it is a special gift, a crowning grace of some women, and that too often it is ruthlessly used for purposes of harm only.

It was impossible for Agatha Loring's best friends to deny that she had used it with a cruel recklessness which sometimes seemed like the wanton mischief of a child; while dark were the tales her enemies told of the lives she had wrecked, the hearts she had broken. After the manner of most women of her class, she was very capricious in her fancies, and a man's best fortune often lay in not possessing interest enough in her eyes to make it worth her while to fascinate him. Let his social rank, wealth, or power, be what it would, if he did not possess this interest, she paid no regard to him. If, on the contrary, she conceived a caprice in his favor, nothing satisfied her save his complete subjection.

A fancy of this description she had taken to Thurston at once, and when she saw his deliberate intention to avoid her-when she read accurately enough the scarcely-veiled dislike and contempt he felt for her-pique came to the aid of caprice, and she determined to bring such a stout rebel to her feet.

"My dear," she said one afternoon, when Mrs. Jennings sought her room during the siesta hour, "what is the reason that your Egyptian cousin dislikes me so much?"

"I-really I don't know what you mean," answered Mrs. Jennings, surprised and a little confused. "Why should you imagine that Colonel Thurston-I suppose it is he whom you mean-dislikes you?"

"Hypocrisy is not at all your particular talent, Lucy," was the quiet response. "I do not imag

ine' that Colonel Thurston dislikes me-I know it. Do you remember when you introduced him to me? Before we had either of us uttered a word, his eyes told me what his sentiments toward me were. Have I injured him in any past state of existence, or what is the reason of his dislike?”

"I suppose he has heard of all your wicked coquetries, and disapproves of them—as well he may," said Mrs. Jennings, who had by this time recovered her self-possession. He is a wise man not to give you a chance to win his heart, for if he did he would fare no better than others have done." Miss Loring laughed softly.

"We shall see!" she said. "A challenge is something I could never brook, and I have taken a fancy to his face and manner. He seems so frank, so honest, so brave-I should like him for a friend." "A friend!" Mrs. Jennings scornfully repeated. 'Agatha, I am ashamed of you! Why not call a spade a spade, and say at once that you want to make a fool of him?"

"Because that is not what I want. I am tired of making fools of men-oh, you may raise your hands if you like; I am tired of all such folly. I don't say I could live without it-I don't say I shall not be a coquette till I die-but I do say that sometimes I would like to feel that I had one honest, genuine friend in the world, and such a friend this man could be. I can see in his face that he would go through fire and water for any one for whom he -cared."

ter.

"I think he would," said Mrs. Jennings, "but he will never go through fire and water for you, and the sooner you put such ideas out of your head the betHe is not the kind of man whom you can fascinate, and as for friendship, that, of course, is stuff! Content yourself with men who belong to your own world, like Antoine Virien, and let my Egyptian cousin alone."

"My dear, do you know that every word you utter gives me an additional reason for overcoming the prejudice that your Egyptian cousin appears to have conceived against me?”

"Agatha, I think you are the most heartless girl and the greatest bundle of contradictions I ever knew!" cried Mrs. Jennings, thoroughly vexed. "If you will have the truth-though I was asked not to tell you-you have already inflicted pain enough on Philip Thurston-"

Tap, tap, at the door, and a domestic summons took Mrs. Jennings away at once, leaving her sentence unfinished.

Agatha made no effort to detain her; but, after the door closed, she said to herself:

Strange! What possible pain have I ever inflicted on Philip Thurston? And she was asked not to tell me. Well, I shall not tempt her to betray his confidence, but I will seek information at the fountain-head."

Though usually one of the last of the feminine band to appear, Miss Loring broke through her habit this afternoon, and half an hour before the dinnerbell rang she swept lightly down the broad staircase,

and paused in the wide, airy hall below. Everything was silent around, for the masculine as well as the feminine occupants of the house were still struggling with their evening toilets in the upper regions, and the cool, dusky drawing-room was entirely deserted.

So she had thought, at least, until she entered and crossed half its length. Then a man's figure rose from a couch in a bay-window, and advanced toward her. At first, in the dim obscurity, she did not recognize him, then her heart gave a leap, and she felt that Fate fought for her.

"Ah, Colonel Thurston, you are like myself— first in the field!" she said. "The heat is tropical, is it not? But you have really found a cool place, I believe."

"My experience in a tropical country has given me a kind of instinct with regard to cool places," Thurston answered. "If you will take a seat in this bay-window, Miss Loring, you will catch a pleasant breeze."

Thanks; but I won't deprive you of your lounging-place-in fact, I am sorry to have disturbed you, for I am on my way to the garden. My toilet needs the finishing touches of some roses, which I could not trust even my maid to gather for me."

She looked straight at Thurston with those limpid, darkly-fringed eyes, which poor Bertie had said were "all expression," and to any other man that look would have been enough. But this man received the glance like granite.

“The sun has sunk low enough for you to find the garden very pleasant now, I have no doubt," he answered, standing quite still.

Then her lips unclosed in a smile, and a bright light, half amused, half beguiling, flashed into her

eyes.

"And do you mean to let me go unattended? I am afraid, Colonel Thurston, that Eastern habits have made you forget our Western code of gallantry."

"I did not suppose you would care for my attendance," he replied; “but, if I can be of service, pray command me."

"You can be of service at once, if you will be so good as to go to Mrs. Jenning's sitting-room and bring me her garden-shears."

so trifling, after Egypt, that I am half ashamed to complain of it."

"It does not seem very great," Thurston answered; “but even if it were there are many pleasant things which one does not appreciate until one loses them. For example, I suppose it hardly strikes you, Miss Loring, that the greenness which clothes the land is a marvel and delight? But it would do so if for five years you had never seen a forest or a valley like that." And he pointed to the emerald expanse below.

"If you can enjoy what appear to us such ordinary things, you must find a great deal of pleasure in your visit to America."

"I expected to find a great deal," he replied; "but the expectation in its large sense has been wholly disappointed, and I am now forced to take what crumbs of enjoyment I can find."

She sent a swift side-glance at him, and, seeing the dark shadow which had fallen over his face, interest and curiosity stirred within her breast.

"Could he have been coming over to be married, and did he arrive to find himself jilted?" she thought. "Such things often make men womenhaters; but he does not seem to hate some kinds of women!"

Once out in the open air, they found the waning afternoon more beautiful than they had imagined: for what is lovelier than the close of a royal summer day? Long, golden light was streaming on rich green foliage and close-shorn turf; the distant hills were wearing a pearly haze, soft as a bridal-veil; deep shadows stretched over the land; and unnumbered sweet odors were wafted to and fro by the breeze, which came with coolness and refreshment on its wings.

"This is better than lying behind closed blinds, with a novel in one hand and a fan in the other," said Agatha. "But probably our heat seems to you

green stems. The woman watching him was a keen observer of human nature, and she saw at once that this little act was very characteristic.

"He dislikes me," she thought. "Every word that he utters, every look he gives me, tells that; but he is nevertheless as careful not to leave any thorn to wound my hands as if—as if he loved me!"

And in that moment, perhaps, the tragedy of these two lives was settled-in that moment a sudden longing for the love which she felt instinctively this man could bestow rose in Agatha Loring's breast; in that moment Philip Thurston's chances of happiness this side of the grave were utterly lost!

He knew as little of it as any of us know when