WYLDER'S HAJVV.
211
ed a little. "A kind of adoring which I fancy belongs
properly to the lords of creation, and which we of the
weaker sex have no right to practise."
"Miss Lake is pleased to be ironical to-night," he said,
with a smile.
"Am I? I dare say. All women are. Irony is the
weapon of cowardice, and cowardice the vice of weakness.
Yet I think I was naturally bold and true. I hate cow-
ardice and deception even in myself— I hate perfidy —
I hate fraud."
She tapped a little emphasis upon the floor with her
white satin shoe, and her eyes flashed with an angry mean-
ing among the crowd at the other end of the room, as if,
following an object to whom in some way the statement
applied.
The strange bitterness of her tone, though it was low
enough, and something wild, suffering, and revengeful in
her look, did not escape Lord Chelford, and he followed
unconsciously the direction of her glance; but there was
nothing there to guide him to a conclusion.
"And yet, Miss Lake, we are all more or less cowards
or deceivers — at least, to the extent of suppression. Who -
would speak the whole truth, or like to hear it — not I, I
know."
"Nor I," she said, quietly.
"I like a little puzzle and mystery — they surround
our future and our past; and the present would be insipid,
I think, without them. Now, I can't tell, Miss Lake, as
you look on Tom Moore there, and I try to read your smile,
whether you happen at this particular moment to adore or
despise him."
"Moore's is a daring morality — what do you think for
instance, of these lines?" she said, touching the verse
with her bouquet.