though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger of Sibyl's
position. This young dandy who was making love to her could mean her no
good. He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated him through
some curious race-instinct for which he could not account, and which for
that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was conscious also
of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature, and in that saw
infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness. Children begin by loving
their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they
forgive them.

His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that
he had brooded on for many months of silence. A chance phrase that he
had heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears
one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of
horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a
hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedgelike
furrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.

"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim," cried Sibyl, "and I
am making the most delightful plans for your future. Do say something."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us," she answered,
smiling at him.

He shrugged his shoulders. "You are more likely to forget me than I am
to forget you, Sibyl."

She flushed. "What do you mean, Jim?" she asked.

"You have a new friend, I hear. Who is he? Why have you not told me
about him? He means you no good."

"Stop, Jim!" she exclaimed. "You must not say anything against him. I
love him."

"Why, you don't even know his name," answered the lad. "Who is he? I
have a right to know."

"He is called Prince Charming. Don't you like the name. Oh! you silly
boy! you should never forget it. If you only saw him, you would think
him the most wonderful person in the world. Some day you will meet
him--when you come back from Australia. You will like him so much.
Everybody likes him, and I ... love him. I wish you could come to the
theatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet. Oh!
how I shall play it! Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet! To have
him sitting there! To play for his delight! I am afraid I may frighten
the company, frighten or enthrall them. To be in love is to surpass
one's self. Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius' to his
loafers at the bar. He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he will
announce me as a revelation. I feel it. And it is all his, his only,
Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces. But I am poor
beside him. Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the
door, love flies in through the window. Our proverbs want rewriting.
They were made in winter, and it is summer now; spring-time for me, I
think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies."

He is a gentleman," said the lad sullenly.

"A prince!" she cried musically. "What more do you want?"

"He wants to enslave you."

"I shudder at the thought of being free."

"I want you to beware of him."

"To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him."

"Sibyl, you are mad about him."

She laughed and took his arm. "You dear old Jim, you talk as if you were
a hundred. Some day you will be in love yourself. Then you will know
what it is. Don't look so sulky. Surely you should be glad to think
that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have ever
been before. Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and
difficult. But it will be different now. You are going to a new world,
and I have found one. Here are two chairs; let us sit down and see the
smart people go by."

They took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers. The tulip-beds across
the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire. A white dust-- tremulous
cloud of orris-root it seemed--hung in the panting air. The brightly
coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous butterflies.

She made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects. He spoke
slowly and with effort. They passed words to each other as players at a
game pass counters. Sibyl felt oppressed. She could not communicate her
joy. A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all the echo she could
win. After some time she became silent. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of
golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open carriage with two ladies
Dorian Gray drove past.

She started to her feet. "There he is!" she cried.

"Who?" said Jim Vane.

"Prince Charming," she answered, looking after the victoria.



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