y skilfully concealed," she remarked.

"The grey is in my soul," said he, with the accent of tragedy.
"Well--?" he again demanded.

"Well what?" teased she, arching her eye-brows innocently.

"Oh, come," he remonstrated. "Don't torture a defenceless animal.
Seal my fate, pronounce my doom. I love you--love you--love you. Will
you have me?"

She stood silhouetted against a window, the light sifting and shining
through her hair.

"I have a condition to make," she said. "You must promise to comply
with my condition--and then I can answer you."

Her dark eyes smiled into his, quizzically, but perhaps with a kind of
tenderness too.

He came nearer.

"A condition? What's the condition?"

"No--you must promise first to agree to it," she said.

"A promise in the dark?" he objected.

"Oh, if you can't trust me!" she cried, with a little shrug.

"There's mischief in your eye," said he. "The man deserves what he
gets, who makes promises in the dark."

"Then make the promise--and see whether you get what you deserve," she
laughed.

"Mercy forbid that any man should get what he deserves," said he. "I
am a suppliant for grace, not justice."

Susanna laughed again. She took her rose from her belt, and brushed
her face with it, touched it with her lips.

"Do you care for roses?" she asked, with a glance of intellectual
curiosity, as one who spoke solely for the purpose of acquiring
knowledge.

"I should care for that rose," said he, vehemently.

She held it out to him, still laughing, but with a difference.

He seized the rose--and suddenly, over-mastered by his impulse,
suddenly, violently, made towards her.

But she drew away, extending her hands to protect herself.

"I beg your pardon," he said, pulling himself up. "But you should make
a conscientious effort to be a trifle less adorable."

He pressed her rose to his mouth, crushing it, breathing in its scent,
trying to possess himself of the touch her mouth had left upon it.

She sank into the corner of a sofa, and leaned back among the cushions.

"Well, do you promise?" she asked, smiling up at him.

"Do you flatter yourself that you 're a trifle less adorable now?"
asked he, smiling down.

"Do you promise?" she repeated, taking away her eyes.

"I clean forget what it was you wished me to promise," said he.

"You are to promise to comply with my condition. Do you?"

"I suppose I must," he answered, with a gesture of submission.

"But