seen her
display. "Why don't you marry Mrs. Falconer?"

He didn't start; indeed, the idea had such a familiar sound it would
have been hard to frighten him with it from any corner.

"I thought you didn't believe in divorces?"

"Oh, but you'd make a wonderful husband!"

He laughed. "No one has ever thought so--_la preuve_....?"

With great frankness in her gesture and a great--he was quick to see
it--a great affection--she put out her hand to him and said: "Oh, yes,
you'd make a wonderful companion, and you've been a wonderful friend.
If anything good comes to me now, I shall in great measure owe it to
you."

He protested: "You owe me nothing, nothing."

There were tears in her eyes as she said: "But I want to, I like to,
and I do. I don't know," she went on, "that I might not have been
reconciled ultimately to my husband, but I feel quite sure it would
only have been the basting up of the seam--it would have ripped away
again. Did you ever--" she challenged him with still a little sparkle
of humor, "hear of a thing called a change of heart?"

"Yes, at Methodist meetings."

She said gravely: "That's not what I mean. But whatever _has_ happened
it's only been since you told me things."

Her face was so girlish, her eyes so sweet, her humility so sudden,
that her companion found himself embarrassed and could hardly find
words to say good-by to her. She went on to say, in a tone so low that
he bent a little over the dial to hear her. "You told me you could not
advise my husband to come to me."

Ah, had he! It was hard to remember that. _Had_ he said so?

"I think," she whispered, "you need not keep him away now, if he should
want to come."

As her friend said nothing, she added in a voice more like a child than
a great Duchess, "You may trust me. I _want_ him to come-- There,
I've said it. I _hope_ he'll come. If he doesn't--

"Why, then, you'll go away," he finished. "You can't bear it."

The Duchess shook her head. "I'll go to him, on the contrary."

"You were going?"

"Yes, when you came."

He cried out: "Oh, I'm off then, I'm off for London, and I shan't be
back for the Christmas holidays. You may count on me."

The Duchess smiled delightfully, and was in a second the elusive woman,
intangible, and impossible to seize.

"No, no," she said, "please don't exile yourself either to-day or
to-morrow. It isn't after all the moment, and I want to prove to you
that I'm not jealous. I