He stopped.

"Well?"

"I do not think you would find anybody who would try harder to help
you," he said simply.

She wished that his voice would tremble, or that he would put out his
hand towards her, or show something a little more like emotion. But she
had to be satisfied.

"Would it be the good man or the bad man that would help me?" she
asked, remembering the former conversation.

"Both," answered Griggs, without hesitation.

"I am not sure that I might not like the bad man better," said Gloria,
almost to herself.

"Is Reanda a bad man?" inquired Griggs, slowly, and looking for the
blush in her face.

"Why?" But she blushed, as he expected.

"Because you like him better than me."

"You are quite different. It is of no use to talk about it, and I want
to read."

She turned from him and buried herself in her book, but she moved
restlessly two or three times, and it was some minutes before the
heightened colour disappeared from her face.

She was very girlish still, and when she had irritated Griggs as far as
such a man was capable of irritation, she preferred to refuse battle
rather than deal with the difficulty she had created. But Griggs
understood, and amongst his still small sufferings he often felt the
little, dull, hopeless pang which tells a man that he is unlovable.

CHAPTER XXIII.

VERY late, one night in the Carnival season, Paul Griggs was walking the
streets alone. His sufferings were no longer so small as they had been,
and the bitterness of solitude was congenial to him.

He had been at the house of a Spanish artist, where there had been
dancing and music and supper and improvised tableaux. Gloria and her
father and Reanda had all been there, too, and something had happened
which had stirred the depths of the young man's slow temper. He hated to
make an exhibition of himself, and much against his will he had been
exhibited, as it were, to help the gaiety of the entertainment. Cotogni,
the great sculptor, had suggested that Griggs should appear as Samson,
asleep with his head on Delilah's knee, and bound by her with cords
which he should seem to break as the Philistines rushed in. He had
refused flatly, again and again, till all the noisy party caught the
idea and forced him to it.

They had dressed him in silk draperies, his mighty arms bare almost to
the shoulder, and they had given him a long, dark, theatrical wig. They
had bound his arms and chest with cords, and had mad