Ah, perhaps, had he forsaken her, the pretty dimpled face would have faded away! He felt pleased that he had been true.

Then the music ceased.
"Is that what you like ?" asked Valentine Charteris, "it is of the stronger sentimental school." Simple, honest Ronald wondered if sentiment was a sin against etiquette, or why fashionable ladies generally spoke of it with a sneer.
"Do you laugh at sentiment ?" he asked; and Valentine opened her fine eyes in wonder at the question.

Lady Earle half overheard it, and smiled in great satisfaction.

Matters must be going on well, she thought, if Ronald had already begun to speak of sentiment.

She never thought that his heart and mind were with Dora while he spoke--pretty Dora, who cried over his poetry, and devoutly believed in the language of flowers.
The evening passed rapidly, and Ronald felt something like regret when it ended.