“After all,” deliberated she, “I have a great mind to wear pearls.  Not a wreath at all.”

“Sibylla!  I say you must not go.”

“Now, Lionel, it is of no use your talking.  I have made up my mind to go; I did at first; and go I shall.  Don’t you remember,” she continued, turning her face from the glass towards him, her careless tone changing for one of sharpness, “that papa said I must not be crossed?”

“But you are not in a state to go out,” remonstrated Lionel.  “Jan forbids it utterly.”

“Jan?  Jan’s in your pay.  He says what you tell him to say.”

“Child, how can you give utterance to such things?” he asked in a tone of emotion.  “When Jan interdicts your going out he has only your welfare at heart.  And you know that I have it.  Evening air and scenes of excitement are equally pernicious for you.”

“I shall go,” returned Sibylla. "You are going, you know,” she resentfully said.  “I wonder you don’t propose that I shall be locked up at home in a dark closet, while you are there, dancing.”

A moment’s deliberation in his mind, and a rapid resolution.  “I shall not go, Sibylla,” he rejoined.  “I shall stay at home with you.”

“Who says you are going to stay at home?”

“I say it myself.  I intend to do so.  I shall do so.”

“Oh!  Since when, pray, have you come to that decision?”

Had she not the penetration to see that he had come to it then—­then, as he talked to her; that he had come to it for her sake?  That she should not have it to say he went out while she was at home.  Perhaps she did see it; but it was nearly impossible to Sibylla not to indulge in bitter, aggravating retorts.

“I understand!” she continued, throwing up her head with an air of supreme scorn.  “Thank you, don’t trouble.  I am not too ill to stoop, ill as you wish to make me out to be.”

In displacing the wreath on her head to a different position, she had let it fall.  Lionel’s stooping to pick it up had called forth the last remark.  As he handed it to her he took her hand.

“Sibylla, promise me to think no more of this.  Do give it up.”

“I won’t give it up,” she vehemently answered.  “I shall go.  And, what’s more, I shall dance.”

Lionel quitted her and sought his mother.  Lady Verner was not very well that afternoon, and was keeping her room.  He found her in an invalid chair.

“Mother, I have come to tell you that I cannot accompany you to-morrow evening,” he said.  “You must please excuse me.”

“Why so?” asked Lady Verner.

“I would so very much rather not go,” he answered.  “Besides, I do not care to leave Sibylla.”

Lady Verner made no observation for a few moments.  A carious smile, almost a pitying smile, was hovering on her lips.

“Lionel, you are a model husband.  Your father was not a bad one, as husbands go; but—­he would not have bent his neck to such treatment from me, as you take from Mrs. Verner.”