s-lamp mistaken even by me'--she spoke this
smilingly--'for a star.'

'I should not like to be mistaken by you for anything,' he said.

'You know I could not mistake you.'

'I think you are mistaking me now--I am afraid so.

'Oh, no; please do not think anything like that. I never could mistake
you--I always understand you. Tell me what you mean.'

'Well; you think me a man of courage, I dare say.'

'Of course I do. Everyone does.'

'Yet I feel rather cowardly at this moment.'

'Cowardly! About what?'

'About you,' he answered blankly.

'About me? Am I in any danger?'

'No, not in that sense.' He did not say in what sense.

She promptly asked him: 'In what sense then?'

'Well, then,' said the Dictator, 'there is something I ought to tell
you, something disagreeable--I am sure it will be disagreeable, and I
don't know how to tell it. I seem to want the courage.'

'Talk to me as if I were a man,' she said hotly.

'That would not mend matters, I am afraid.'

They were now walking back towards the Park.

'Call me Dick Langley,' she said, 'and talk to me as if I were a boy,
and then perhaps you can tell me all you mean and all you want to do. I
am tired of this perpetual difficulty.'

'It wouldn't help in the least,' the Dictator said, 'if I were to call
you Dick Langley. You would still be Helena Langley.'

The girl, usually so fearless and unconstrained--so unconventional,
those said who liked her--so reckless, they said who did not like
her--this girl felt for the first time in her life the meaning of the
conventional--the all-pervading meaning of the difference of sex. For
the mere sound of her own name, 'Helena,' pronounced by Ericson, sent
such a thrill of delight through her that it made her cheek flush. It
did a great deal more than that--it made her feel that she could not
long conceal her emotion towards the Dictator, could not long pretend
that it was nothing more than that which the most enthusiastic devotee
feels for a political leader. A shock of fear came over her, something
compounded of exquisite pleasure and bewildering pain. That one word
'Helena,' spoken perhaps carelessly by the man who walked beside her,
broke in upon her soul and sense with the awakening touch of a
revelation. She awoke, and she knew that she must soon betray herself.
She knew that never again could she have the careless freedom of heart
which she owned but yesterday. She was afraid. She felt tears coming
into h