mantelpiece and his face buried in his arm, and often he sighed. About half-past five he rang for his valet and dressed, and in another hour he broke his fast-a little soup, a cutlet, and a glass or two of claret. And then he looked at his watch; and he looked at his watch every five minutes for the next hour.

He was in deep reverie, when the servant announced that his carriage was ready. He started as from a dream, then pressed his hand to his eyes, and kept it there for some moments, and then, exclaiming 'Jacta est alea,' he descended the stairs.

'Where to, my Lord?' enquired the servant when he had entered the carriage. Lothair seemed to hesitate, and then he said, 'To Belmont.'

CHAPTER XXXI.

'BELMONT is the only house I know that is properly lighted,' said Mr. Phœbus, and he looked with complacent criticism round the brilliant saloons. I would not visit anyone who had gas in his house; but even in palaces I find lamps-it is too dreadful. When they came here first, there was an immense chandelier suspended in each of these rooms, pulling down the ceilings, dwarfing the apartments, leaving the guests all in darkness, and throwing all the light on the roof. The chandelier is the great abomination of furniture; it makes a noble apartment look small. And then they say you cannot light rooms without chandeliers! Look at these need anything be more brilliant? And all the light in the right place on those who are in the cham

ber. All light should come from the side of a room, and if you choose to have candelabra like these you can always secure sufficient.'

Theodora was seated on a sofa in conversation with a lady of distinguished mien and with the countenance of a Roman empress. There were various groups in the room, standing or seated. Colonel Campian was attending a lady to the piano where a celebrity presided, a gentleman with cropped head and a long black beard. The lady was of extraordinary beauty-one of those faces one encounters in Asia Minor, rich, glowing, with dark fringed eyes of tremulous lustre; a figure scarcely less striking, of voluptuous symmetry. Her toilette was exquisite-perhaps a little too splendid for the occasion, but abstractedly of fine tasteand she held, as she sang, a vast bouquet entirely of white stove flowers. The voice was as sweet as the stephanopolis, and the execution faultless. It seemed the perfection of chamber-singing-no shrieks and

no screams, none of those agonising experiments which result from the fatal competition of rival prima-donnas.

She was singing when Lothair was ushered in. Theodora rose and greeted him with friendliness. Her glance was that of gratification at his arrival, but the performance prevented any conversation save a few kind remarks interchanged in a hushed tone. Colonel Campian came up: he seemed quite delighted at renewing his acquaintance with Lothair, and began to talk rather too loudly, which made some of the gentlemen near the piano turn round with glances of wondering reproach. This embarrassed his newly-arrived guest, who in his distress caught the bow of a lady who recognised him, and whom he instantly remembered as Mrs. Putney Giles. There was a vacant chair by her side, and he was glad to occupy it.

'Who is that lady?' enquired Lothair of his companion when the singing ceased. 'That is Madame Phoebus,' said Mrs. Giles.

'Madame Phœbus!' exclaimed Lothair, with an unconscious feeling of some relief. She is a very beautiful woman. Who was she?'

6

'She is a Cantacuzene, a daughter of the famous Greek merchant. The Cantacuzenes, you know, are great people, descendants of the Greek Emperors. Her uncle is prince of Samos. Mr. Cantacuzene was very much opposed to the match, but I think quite wrong. Mr. Phœbus is a most distinguished man, and the alliance is of the happiest. Never was such mutual devotion.'

'I am not surprised,' said Lothair, wonderfully relieved.

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Her sister Euphrosyne is in the room,' continued Mrs. Giles, the most extraordinary resemblance to her. There is just the difference between the matron and the maiden; that is all. They are nearly of the same age, and before the marriage might have been mistaken for each other. The most charming thing in the world is