Is there any article of your apparel that I can have the privilege of kissing ?" Mrs.Dillingham laughed him in his face.

Then she took a wilted rose-bud from a nosegay at her breast, and gave it to him.
"My roses are all faded," she said--"worth nothing to me--worth nothing to anybody--except you." Then she passed to the window; to hide her emotion?
to hide her duplicity?
to change the subject?
to give Mr.Belcher a glance at her gracefully retreating figure?
to show herself, framed by the window, into a picture for the delight of his devouring eyes?
Mr.Belcher followed her.

His hand lightly touched her waist, and she struck it down, as if her own were the velvet paw of a lynx.
"You startled me so!" she said.
"Are you always to be startled so easily ?" "Here?
yes." "Everywhere ?" "Yes.

Perhaps so." "Thank you." "For what ?" "For the perhaps." "You are easily pleased and grateful for nothing; and, now, tell me who lives opposite to you ?" "A lawyer by the name of James Balfour." "James Balfour?
Why, he's one of my old flames.

He ought to have been here to-day.