r present
occupation."

"I could keep that up as a side-line."

"So you could. But if you use my time for your own profit, you ought to
pay me a royalty on your intake."

His eyes lit with laughter. "I reckon that can be arranged. Any
percentage you think fair It will all be in the family, anyway."

"I think that is one of the things about which we don't agree," she made
answer softly, flashing him the proper look of inviting disdain from
under her silken lashes.

He leaned forward, elbow on the chair-arm and chin in hand. "We'll agree
about it one of these days."

"Think so?" she returned airily.

"I don't think. I know."

Just an eyebeat her gaze met his, with that hint of shy questioning, of
puzzled doubt that showed a growing interest. "I wonder," she murmured,
and recovered herself little laugh.

How she hated her task, and him! She was a singularly honest woman, but
she must play the siren; must allure this scoundrel to forgetfulness,
with a hurried and yet elude the very familiarity her manner invited.
She knew her part, the heartless enticing coquette, compounded half
of passion and half of selfishness. It was a hateful thing to do, this
sacrifice of her personal reticence, of the individual abstraction in
which she wrapped herself as a cloak, in order to hint at a possibility
of some intimacy of feeling between them. She shrank from it with a
repugnance hardly to be overcome, but she held herself with an iron will
and consummate art to the role she had undertaken. Two lives hung on
her success. She must not forget that. She would not let herself forget
that--and one of them that of the man she loved.

So, bravely she played her part, repelling always with a hint of
invitation, denying with the promise in her fascinated eyes of ultimate
surrender to his ardor. In the zest of the pursuit the minutes slipped
away unnoticed. Never had a woman seemed to him more subtly elusive, and
never had he felt more sure of himself. Her charm grew on him, stirred
his pulses to a faster beat. For it was his favorite sport, and this
warm, supple young creature, who was to be the victim of his bow and
arrow, showed herself worthy of his mettle.

The clock downstairs struck the half-hour, and Bannister, reminded of
what lay before him outside, made a move to go. Her alert eyes had been
expecting it, and she forestalled him by a change of tactics. Moved
apparently by impulse, she seated herself on the piano-stool, swep