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 She followed his glance and gazed approval on their common reflections. How handsome he was! and how well she was looking herself! The wine and excitement had flushed her cheeks and lighted her eyes with a starry radiance; a dew of perspiration had dampened her hair and ruffled it into soft curls. Her satisfaction in her own appearance made her the more ready to admire him, made her the more lenient to his avowed fault; besides, what woman ever scorns to triumph over a rival in any man's estimation?

"A woman's intuition permits her to divine conditions that are not actually within her experience," she answered, softly, sipping the glass of champagne before her with grave appreciation, "and I think I can fairly say that you have not fallen in my estimation. One learns," and here Philippa looked vastly worldly-wise and bitter, "not to expect a man's life to be as spotless as a woman's, or even a woman's as spotless as it ought to be. I must own, though, that what you tell me of Victoria would surprise most of her friends more than it does me. I have never 153