on the assumption that they were sworn and
natural comrades, Hamilton and herself, bound together by the common
bond of servitude to the Dictator. All this dream had been suddenly
shattered by the visit of Ericson, and the curious mission on which he
had come. Helena felt her cheeks flushing up again and again as she
thought of it. It had told her everything. It had shown her what a
mistake she had made when she lavished so much of her friendly
attentions on Hamilton--and what a mistake she had made when she failed
to understand her own feelings about the Dictator. The moment he spoke
to her of Hamilton's offer she knew at a flash how it was with her. The
burst of disappointment and anger with which she found that he had come
there to recommend to her the love of another man was a revelation that
almost dazzled her by its light. What had she said, what had she done?
she now kept asking herself. Had she betrayed her secret to him, just at
the very moment when it had first betrayed itself to her? Had she
allowed him to guess that she loved him? Her cheeks kept reddening again
and again at the terrible suspicion. What must he think of her? Would he
pity her? Would he wonder at her--would he feel shocked and sorry, or
only gently mirthful? Did he regard her only as a more or less
precocious child? What had she said--how had she looked--had her eyes
revealed her, or her trembling lips, or her anger, or the tone of her
voice? A young man accustomed to ways of abstinence is tempted one
sudden night into drinking more champagne than is good for him, and in a
place where there are girls, where there is one girl in whose eyes above
all others he wishes to seem an admirable and heroic figure. He gets
home all right--he is apparently in possession of all his senses; but he
has an agonised doubt as to what he may have said or done while the
first flush of the too much champagne was still in his spirits and his
brain. He remembers talking with her. He tries to remember whether she
looked at all amazed or shocked. He does not think she did; he cannot
recall any of her words, or his words; but he may have said something to
convince her that he had taken too much champagne, and for her even to
think anything of the kind about him would have seemed to him eternal
and utter degradation in her eyes. Very much like this were the feelings
of Helena Langley about the words which she might have spoken, the looks
which she might have given, to t