n in this Empire, to ride to power over
the heads of all the nonentities whose only claim upon the confidence of
their countrymen is that they were born in a certain class, with money
in their pockets and without the need to spend the best of their manhood
in work. With you at my side I can do all these things and more, and
such is the future that I have to offer you."

Again she would have broken in upon his speech and again he stopped her,
reading the unspoken answer on her lips.

"Listen: I have not told you all. Perhaps I have put first what should
have come last. I have not told you that I love you earnestly and
sincerely, with the settled, unalterable love that sometimes comes to
men in middle-age who have never turned their thought that way before.
I will not attempt the rhapsodies of passion which at my time of life
might sound foolish or out of place; yet it is true that I am filled
with this passion which has descended on me and taken possession of me.
I who often have laughed at such things in other men, adore you. You
are a joy to my eyes. If you are not in the room, for me it is empty. I
admire the uprightness of your character, and even your prejudices, and
to your standard I desire to approximate my own. I think that no man can
ever love you quite so well as I do, Barbara Champers. Now speak. I am
ready to meet the best or the worst."

After her fashion Barbara looked him straight in the face with her
steady eyes, and answered gently enough, for the man's method of
presenting his case, elaborate and prepared though it evidently was, had
touched her.

"I fear it is the worst, Sir Robert. There are hundreds of women
superior to myself in every way who would be glad to give you the help
and companionship you ask, with their hearts thrown in. Choose one of
them, for I cannot do so."

He heard and for the first time his face broke, as it were. All this
while it had remained masklike and immovable, even when he spoke of his
love, but now it broke as ice breaks at the pressure of a sudden flood
beneath, and she saw the depths and eddies of his nature and understood
their strength. Not that he revealed them in speech, angry or pleading,
for that remained calm and measured enough. She did not hear, she saw,
and even then it was marvellous to her that a mere change in a man's
expression could explain so much.

"Those are very cruel words," he said. "Are they unalterable?"

"Quite. I do not play in such matt