A Woman Martyr

								

made of tiny seed pearls.
"This will suit mademoiselle a merveille," exclaimed the little
Frenchwoman.  "And with that pearl garniture----"
"I shall not go out to-night," she said, with a disgusted glance at the
finery which seemed such hollow mockery.  And as soon as she had changed
her habit for a tea-gown, she locked herself in her boudoir, and
stormily pacing the room, asked herself what this sudden chill in her
lover meant.
"I have gone too far--I have been too cold--I have lost him!" she told
herself, wildly. "I cannot bear it!  While there was the faintest of
faint hope left--that I might be with him some day--I could
bear--everything! But to see him look at me as if I were anybody, speak
as if he did not care what became of me--no, no, I should soon go mad!"
Flinging herself prone on her sofa, she clasped her throbbing head in
both hands, and asked herself passionately what could be done.
"I cannot, must not, lower myself by writing to him--and then, if he was
the same again, I could not take advantage of it! Was ever poor wretched
girl in such a miserable position as I am?"
All seemed hopeless, gloomy, dark, until a sudden thought came like a
brilliant flash of light.
"He may be there, he will be there, to-night!  Of course, he is a friend
of the Duchess," she told herself.  "That is what it meant!  He knew we
should meet there! He was teasing me--trying me!"
The suggestions comforted her as she rang, told Julie she had changed
her mind, and would go to the ball; and she subsequently dined with her
uncle and aunt, who seemed in exceedingly good spirits.  (Sir Thomas’
pet project was that Lord Vansittart should marry Joan, and he augured
well from his appearance at this juncture, and went through the ceremony
of dressing with a certain amount of patience.)  When she stood before
her long glass, with all the electric lights switched on, and saw
herself in her gleaming white and shining pearls, tall, queenly, fair,
with the glistening wreaths of golden hair crowning her small head, and
her lustrous brown eyes alive with that peculiar, unfathomable
expression which had gained her the epithet "sphinx-like" more than once
when she was discussed as the Beauty who meant to flout every Beast that
approached her, and did--she felt comforted. Only when she was shut into
the carriage, her aunt prattling platitudes, and the flickering street
lamps flashing stray gleams into the dimly-lit vehicle as they drove
along, was she seized with a sudden panic.
"I feel as if--if he does not come--I shall break down, utterly--I shall
not be able to bear my life any more!" she told herself, despondently.
"I shall end it all--no one will care!  There is only old Nana, who is
barely alive, and she would follow me at once!"
The Duke of Arran was a man of ideas--and he lived to carry them out.
The balls and entertainments at Arran House were always unique.  That
evening was no exception.  As Joan alighted, and passing through the