uld ask questions--questions I couldn't possibly
answer. If he didn't say them he would look them. And his eyes are so
terribly keen. They frighten me. They see--everything."

"But, _cherie_," he reasoned, "they could not see what is not there. You
have nothing to hide from him. You have no shame. Why, then, have you
fear?"

"I don't know," gasped Chris. "Only I know that he would never
understand. He would think--he would think--"

"He would think that we have been--pals--for as long as we have known
each other," said Bertrand soothingly. "He knows it already. It is true,
is it not?"

But Chris's eyes had been opened too suddenly and tragically. Her sense
of proportion was still undeveloped. "Yes, but he would never see it. You
could never explain to him so that he would understand. He would think I
had been deceiving him. He would think--Bertie, he would think"--her eyes
dilated, and she drew in her breath sharply--"that--that you and I ought
not to be friends any longer. Oh, don't tell him--please don't tell him.
Indeed I am right. He trusts you, and--and he trusts me. But he wouldn't
trust either of us any longer if he knew."

"Christine! Christine!"

"It is true," she asserted feverishly. "You don't know him as I do. Oh
no, he has never been hard to me. But he could be hard. And he wouldn't
forgive me--if he thought I had been hiding anything. Bertie, Bertie, you
won't do it? Say you won't do it!"

"I do nothing without your consent," Bertrand answered quietly. "But I
think that it is a mistake. I think--"

"Oh, thank you!" she broke in earnestly. "I know I can rely upon you to
keep your word. I can, can't I?"

He smiled at a question which he would have borne from no other. "Until
death, Christine," he said.

Her hands fell away from his arm. She was shaking all over. "I know I'm
foolish," she said. "I can't help it. I was made so. And when Trevor
begins to ask questions--" She broke off nervously. "What is that?"

A leisurely footfall sounded in the hall, a quiet hand pressed the
electric switch by the door, and the room was flooded with light.

"Oh, don't!" Chris cried out sharply. "Don't!"

She put her hands over her face as if dazzled, and so stood quivering.

"What is it?" Mordaunt asked. "Did I startle you?"

He came to her. He drew her hands gently down. But she almost cowered
before him, and he let her go.

"I think that she is tired," Bertrand said, his voice very low.

"Is that all?"