Chapter 11

A SLIGHT INDISCRETION.

During the remainder of the evening, Miss Belinda was a prey to
wretchedness and despair. When she raised her eyes to her hostess, she
met with a glance full of icy significance; when she looked across the
tea-table, she saw Octavia seated next to Mr. Francis Barold,
monopolizing his attention, and apparently in the very best possible
spirits. It only made matters worse, that Mr. Francis Barold seemed to
find her remarks worthy of his attention. He drank very little tea, and
now and then appeared much interested and amused. In fact, he found Miss
Octavia even more entertaining than he had found her during their
journey. She did not hesitate at all to tell him that she was delighted
to see him again at this particular juncture.

"You don't know how glad I was to see you come in," she said.

She met his rather startled glance with the most open candor as she
spoke.

"It is very civil of you to say so," he said; "but you can hardly expect
me to believe it, you know. It is too good to be true."

"I thought it was too good to be true when the door opened," she answered
cheerfully. "I should have been glad to see _anybody_, almost"--

"Well, that," he interposed, "isn't quite so civil."

"It is not quite so civil to"--

But there she checked herself, and asked him a question with the most
_naive_ seriousness.

"Are you a great friend of Lady Theobald's?" she said.

"No," he answered. "I am a relative."

"That's worse," she remarked.

"It is," he replied. "Very much worse."

"I asked you," she proceeded, with an entrancing little smile of
irreverent approval, "because I was going to say that my last speech was
not quite so civil to Lady Theobald."

"That is perfectly true," he responded. "It wasn't civil to her at all."

He was passing his time very comfortably, and was really surprised to
feel that he was more interested in these simple audacities than he had
been in any conversation for some time. Perhaps it was because his
companion was so wonderfully pretty, but it is not unlikely that there
were also other reasons. She looked him straight in the eyes, she
comported herself after the manner of a young lady who was enjoying
herself, and yet he felt vaguely that she might have enjoyed herself
quite as much with Burmistone, and that it was probable that she would
not think a second time of him, or of what she said to him.

After tea, when they returned to the drawing-room, the opportunities
afforded for conversation were not numerous. The piano