His clear blue eyes lingered on her perfect face, and again, for the second time in her life, the queen of coquettes felt something like pity for the man she was luring to his doom.  She leaned back in the carriage after he was gone, with a most triumphant smile on her lips.

“What wonders a pretty face can work,” she thought.  “I feel quite safe, now that my troubles are to rest on his broad shoulders.  How I should like to see that Jules trampled upon and crushed.  My knight will save me.”

She never remembered that he was the only son of his mother—­a widow.  She cared little that he was the head of a grand old race.  She thought still less of his talents, his honest enthusiasm, his simplicity, except so far as it answered her purpose.

CHAPTER XIII.

Ladie Amelia’s Story.

A few hours later, and Lady Lisle was seated in her boudoir, exquisitely attired.  She, who knew so well the effect of every fold in her dress, of every flower she wore or carried; she, who had studied the art of looking beautiful more completely than any other woman, had not neglected her most potent charm.  She wore a dinner dress of white silk, with crimson flowers, that suited her dark, glowing beauty to perfection.  An elegant toilet!  No jewels, but a massive golden bracelet on one arm, and a golden chain of exquisite workmanship round her neck.

“I knew you would come,” she said, looking up with a smile as Basil was shown into her boudoir; “I knew you would not fail me.  We shall have time for a long conversation.  Lord Lisle never reaches home until a quarter of an hour before dinner, and then he has to hurry.  Our guests will not arrive until nearly eight, so we shall not be interrupted.”

He looked round that little fairy nook, wondering at its elegance, wondering at the soft, rosy light, at the fragrance of the white daphnes, but more than all at the queenly loveliness of the beautiful woman before him.

She sat in the very heart of the crimson glow, her glistening silken dress sweeping in rich waves, and quite sure that her attitude, like everything else about her, was perfect.  She held out her hand to him, with a smile that would have bewildered any man older and wiser than he.

“Sit down here,” she said, pointing to a velvet fauteuil; “I am going to make you my judge.  Ah, Basil, for this one night I may call you Basil; perhaps after you have heard what I have to say, you will never be my knight again; it may change you.”

“I shall belong to you, and ask no greater happiness than to serve you until I die,” he replied,

A fan lay on the table by her side, with jeweled handle, and made of white, soft feathers.  She opened it and quietly stirred the warm, perfumed air.

“I could only tell my trouble to you,” she began, in her soft, caressing voice.  “You will understand me, because you know what it is to have wishes, hopes and aspirations that are never realized.  You know what it is to be unworldly and unlike others.