ost sensational power."

"I should probably be quite overshadowed by you," she murmured; but she
was hardly conscious of speaking. Her brain was whirling.

"Your position would be too eminent for that, even if I wished it,
which I assuredly should not. I value you too highly. Perhaps I am
one of the few men in Europe who admit--and believe--that a woman may
have as powerful and accomplished an intellect as any man. I did not
appreciate your mind as you deserved when I loved you, but I did during
those subsequent years in Vienna."

"You did not ask me to marry you then--when you appreciated me so
highly. You never seemed to know whether you were talking to a man or
a woman when you were with me. And yet I was, possibly, more
interesting psychologically than I had ever been."

"No man is interested in an old woman's psychology. I am not
interested in your psychology today. And I did not ask you to marry me
then for a great many reasons. I was too handicapped to play a great
role myself, you will remember. Nor could you have been of the same
service to me. Even if your fatigued mind had been refreshed, by your
stay in Hungary, you had lost the beauty and the energy, the power of
ardent interest in the affairs of state, which have now been restored
to you. With your rare gifts and your renewed youth, I repeat you have
it in your power to be the most famous woman in Europe, and perhaps the
most useful. But not with a young alien husband. Not only would you
automatically revert to the status of an American, but the dignity
which, unlike so many women of your age who had been _dames galantes_,
you took care to impress on the world, would be hopelessly sacrificed.
Incredible. To spend yourself on a love affair, wantonly to throw away
an historic career, merely because a young man has hypnotized you into
the delusion that you may once more enjoy the passions of youth----"

"Stop! You shall not!" She had sprung to her feet. Her face was
drawn and pinched but her eyes were blazing. "Every word you say is
for a purpose. If that were all I should have hated him. As much as I
hate you. My mind never dwelt on that--not for a moment--I--I never
faced it. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Ah, but I do." He had risen also, and he put his hands on her
shoulders. They were long thin hands but very powerful, and it seemed
to her that they sank slowly through her flesh, until, however
painlessly, the