ver hear any stories which I should not hear?"

"Only from Captain Forrest himself; he told me that he was engaged to
you. That was when I went to the Savoy Hotel."

"All those weeks ago. And you never mentioned it?"

"Was it any business of mine? What right had I to speak to you about
it?"

She flushed deeply.

"A secret for a secret," she said. "When you first came to Hampstead, I
thought that you liked me a little Alban. Now, I know that you do not.
Suppose there were a reason why I let Willy Forrest say that he was
engaged to me. Suppose some one else had been unkind when I wished him
to be very kind to me. Would you understand then?"

This was in the best spirit of the coquette and yet a great earnestness
lay behind it. Posing in that romantic light, the thick red lips
pouting, the black eyes shining as with the clear flame of a soul
awakened, the head erect as that of a deer which has heard a sound afar,
this passionate little actress, half Pole, half Jewess, might well have
set a man's heart beating and brought him, suppliant, to her feet. To
Alban there returned for a brief instant all that spirit of homage and
of awe with which he had first beheld her on the balcony of the house
in St. James' Square. The cynic in him laid down his robe and stood
before her in the garb of youth spellbound and fascinated. He dared to
say to himself, she loves me--it is to me that these words are spoken.

"I cannot understand you, Anna," he exclaimed, tortured by some plague
of a sudden memory, held back from a swift embrace he knew not by what
instinct. "You say that you only let Willy Forrest call himself engaged
to you. Don't you love him then--is it all false that you have told
him?"

"It is quite false, Alban--I do not love him as you would understand the
meaning of the word. If he says that I am engaged to him, is it true
because he says it? There are some men who marry women simply because
they are persevering. Willy Forrest would be one of them if I were weak
enough. But I do not love him--I shall never love him, Alban."

She bent low and almost whispered the words in his ear. Her hand covered
his fingers caressingly. His forehead touched the lace upon her robe and
he could hear her heart beating. An impulse almost irresistible came
upon him to take her in his arms and hold her there, and find in her
embrace that knowledge of the perfect womanhood which had been his dream
through the years. He knew not what held