BALZATORE, by many coquetries, had long been trying to attract their attention. At last he had succeeded.

"You have an admirer," Ruth, with a gleam, remarked to her companion. "Mercy, how he's ogling you."

"Yes," answered Lucilla Dor, untroubled, in that contented, caressing voice of hers, while, her elbow on the table, with the "languid grace," about which Ruth chaffed her a good deal, she pensively nibbled a fig. "The admiration is reciprocal. What a handsome fellow he is!"

And her soft blue eyes smiled straight into Balzatore's eager brown ones.

Quivering with emotion, Balzatore sprang up, and in another second would have bounded to her side.

"Sit down, sir; where are you going?" sternly interposed Bertram. Placed with his back towards the ladies, he was very likely unaware of their existence.

Balzatore sat down, but he gave his head a toss that clearly signified his opinion of the restraint put upon him: senselessly conventional, monstrously annoying. And he gave Lucilla Dor a look. Disappointment spoke in it, homage, dogged—'tis a case for saying so—dogged tenacity of purpose. "Never fear," it promised, "I'll find an opportunity yet."

He found it, sure enough, some twenty minutes later.