eeping her head bent, feeding
Columbus surreptitiously as he sat by her side.

Her plate was empty when at length very resolutely she looked up and
spoke. "Dick, I want you to understand one thing. I did not open that
parcel of yours. It was open when it came."

Instantly his eyes were upon her with merciless directness. "I gathered
that," he said.

She met his look unflinchingly, but her next words came with an effort.
"Then you can't--with justice--blame me for surprising your secret."

"I don't," he said.

"And yet--" She made a slight gesture of remonstrance, as if the piercing
brightness of his eyes were more than she could bear.

He pushed back his chair and rose. He came to her as she sat, bent over
her, his hand on her shoulder, and looked at her intently.

"Juliet," he said, "I don't like you with that stuff on your face. It
isn't--you."

She kept her face steadily upturned, enduring his look with no sign of
shrinking. "You are meeting--the real me--for the first
time--to-night," she said.

His mouth curved cynically. "I think not. I have never worshipped at the
shrine of a painted goddess."

Something rose in her throat and she put up a hand to hide it. "I doubt
if--Dene Strange--was ever capable of worshipping anything," she said.

His hand closed upon her. "Does that mean that you hate him more than you
love me?" he said.

A faint quiver crossed her face. She passed the question by. "Do you
remember--Cynthia Paramount--your heroine?" she said. "The woman you
dissected so cleverly--stripped to the naked soul--and exposed to public
ridicule? You were terribly merciless, weren't you, Dick? You didn't
expect--some day--to find yourself married--to that sort of woman."

His face hardened. "In what way do you resemble her?" he said. "I have
never seen it yet."

"Can't you see it--now?" she returned, lifting her face more fully to
the light.

He was silent for several seconds, looking at her. Then very suddenly his
attitude changed. He knelt down by her side and spoke, urgently,
passionately.

"Juliet--for God's sake--let us remember what we are to each other--and
put the rest away!"

His arm encircled her. He would have drawn her close, but she held back
with a sharp sound that was almost a cry of pain.

"Dick, wait--wait a moment! You don't know--don't understand! Ah,
wait--please wait! Take your arm away--just for a moment--please--just
for a moment! I have something to tell you, but I ca