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286 to find a pretext for breaking out. "Just look at the tone of that glass, and the gilding of that leather, and the cutting of that oak, and the dear old flags of the very floor." It came back, came back easily, her impulse to appeal to the lawful heir, and she seemed, with her smile of universal intelligence, just to demand the charity of another moment for it. "To look, in this place, is to love!"

A voice from the party she had in hand took it up with an artless guffaw that resounded more than had doubtless been meant and that, at any rate, was evidently the accompaniment of some private pinch applied to one of the ladies. "I say—to love!"

It was one of the ladies who very properly replied. "It depends on who you look at!"

Mr. Prodmore, in the geniality of the hour, made his profit of the simple joke. "Do you hear that, Captain? You must look at the right person!"

Mrs. Gracedew certainly had not been looking at the wrong one. "I don't think Captain Yule cares. He doesn't do justice!"

Though her face was still gay, she had faltered, which seemed to strike the young man even more than if she had gone on. "To what, madam?"