He would have refused, but that he met the imploring glance of Lady Amelie’s eyes.

“I will come with pleasure,” he replied; and her eyes thanked him.

Then Lord Lisle, thinking he had been most amiable and charming, rose from his chair and quitted the room.  In some vague, indistinct way the atmosphere seemed clearer after he had gone.

Lady Amelie made no comment; a woman less gifted than herself might have done so; she merely raised her hands and eyes and gave one deep sigh.  Will you believe me that that sigh meant more than any other woman could have put into words?  It meant “Pity me! see how I am wasted on this boor of a man! think how uncongenial he is, how wretched I am.”

No one could sigh so effectively as Lady Amelie Lisle; thus it was with difficulty she refrained from smiling.  Basil looked so wretchedly anxious and uncomfortable, she saw that he was longing to say something, but dare not.

“I shall not be five minutes,” she said, with a graceful little smile; “and then we can spend a long hour with the pictures.”

CHAPTER XII.

Caught in the Snare.

The first part of that hour was charming.  Basil never forgot it; the rooms were not crowded, the pictures beautiful, and Lady Amelie in one of her most graceful moods.  They both stood before a little gem by one of our first English artists, called “The Coquette’s Decision,” a very pretty picture that told its own story.  A young girl, standing, half hesitating between two gentlemen.  They looked anxious, she smiling and triumphant.  She inclined ever so little to the fair-haired youth on the right, her eyes and lips smiling on him, but her hand was extended to his dark-haired rival on the left.

“I do not like that kind of picture,” said Basil, “it lowers one’s ideal of woman.  I do not think there is one-half so much coquetry in the world as people would make you believe.”

“Perhaps you never knew a coquette,” she said; and the look she gave him from underneath those long lashes was quite irresistible.

“No,” he replied; “indeed, a coquette could never charm me.  My ideal of woman is some one as lofty, grand, beautiful and gifted as you.”

“Yet there are coquettes,” she said, gravely.

“I do not doubt it.  I only say there would be no charm for me in the fairest of them all.”

Just then two gentlemen entered at the other end of the room, and the slight noise made by their entrance caused Lady Amelie to look up.  Basil, who was watching her every movement, as he always did, attentively, saw her turn very pale and a sudden cloud of fear dimmed the radiance of her eyes.

“Lady Amelie, you are ill!” he cried; “or tired.”

“I am tired,” she said, and they sat down on one of the seats, placed in the middle of the room.  It struck him that she was anxiously trying to conceal herself from observation, yet the idea seemed absurd.