is face became like marble.

"You mean--that it isn't any use?" he asked hoarsely.

She looked at him, and he did not press for words.

"Is it--the missioner?" he asked.

Her head sank a little lower, but still she did not answer. Gilbert
Deyes drew himself upright. He remembered the cigarette which had burnt
itself out between his fingers, and he carefully re-lit it.

"I am now," he said, blowing a cloud of blue smoke into the heart of a
yellow rose, "confronted by a somewhat hackneyed, but always interesting
problem. Do I care for you enough--or too little--or too much--to
continue your friend, when my aid will probably ensure the loss of you
for ever! It is not a problem to be hurried over, this!"

"There is no need for haste," she answered. "I know you, Gilbert, better
than you know yourself. I am very sure that you will help me--if you
can."

He laughed bitterly.

"You are a good deal surer of me than I am of myself," he answered. "Why
should I give you up to a boy who hasn't learnt yet the first lesson of
life?"

"What is it?" she asked. "I am not clear that I have graduated."

"You can see it blazoned over the portals as you pass through the
gates," he answered, "'Abandon all enthusiasm, ye who enter here.' The
pathways of life are heaped with the corpses of those who will not
understand. Do you think that this boy will fare better than the rest,
with his preaching and lectures and East End work? It's sheer
impertinence! Man, the individual, is only a pawn in the game of life.
Why should he imagine that he can alter the things that are?"

"Even the striving to alter them," she said, "may tend towards
betterment."

"A platitude," he declared--"and hopeless!"

She raised her eyes to his.

"Anyhow," she said softly, "I care for him."

He bowed low.

"Incomprehensible," he murmured. "Take your freedom and marry this young
man if you must. But I warn you that you will be miserable. Apples and
green figs don't grow on the same tree."

He drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to her.

"Jean le Roi," he said, "was married to Annette Hurier, in the town of
Chalons, two years before he posed before you as the Duke of Languerois.
You will find Annette's address in there. It took me a year to trace
this out--a wasted year! Bah! you women are all disappointments. We will
go and play bridge."

Lady Peggy stared at Wilhelmina when they entered the library a few
minutes later.

"What on earth