The Haunted Chamber

Then she begins to speculate dreamily upon the sort of woman who would be happy enough to be his wife. She is still idly ruminating on this point when her companion's voice brings her back to the present. She had so far forgotten his existence in her day-dreaming that his words come to her like a whisper from some other world, and occasion her an actual shock.

"Your thoughtfulness renders me sad," he is saying impressively. "It carries you to regions where I can not follow you."

To this she makes no reply, regarding him only with a calm questioning glance that might well have daunted a better man. It only nerves him however to even bolder words.

"The journey your thoughts have taken--has it been a pleasant one?" he asks, smiling.

"I have come here for rest, not for conversation." There is undisguised dislike in her tones. Still he is untouched by her scorn. He even grows more defiant, as though determined to let her see that even her avowed hatred can not subdue him.

"If you only knew," he goes on, with slow meaning, regarding her as he speaks with critical admiration, "how surpassingly beautiful you look to-night, you would perhaps understand in a degree the power you possess over your fellow-creatures. In that altitude, with that slight touch of scorn upon your lips, you seem a meet partner for a monarch."

She laughs a low contemptuous laugh, that even makes his blood run hotly in his veins.

"And yet you have the boldness to offer yourself as an aspirant to my favor?" she says. "In truth, sir, you value yourself highly!"

"Love will find the way!" he quotes quickly, though plainly disconcerted by her merriment. "And in time I trust I shall have my reward."

"In time, I trust you will," she returns, in a tone impossible to misconstrue.

At this point he deems it wise to change the subject; and, as he halts rather lamely in his conversation, at a loss to find some topic that may interest her or advance his cause, Sir Adrian and Dora pass by the door of the conservatory.

Sir Adrian is smiling gayly at some little speech of Dora's, and Dora is looking up at him with a bright expression in her blue eyes that tells of the happiness she feels.

"Ah, I can not help thinking Adrian is doing very wisely," observes Arthur Dynecourt, some evil genius at his elbow urging him to lie.