er eyes. She stopped suddenly, and put her hand to her side and
gasped as if for breath.

'What is the matter?' Ericson asked. 'Are you unwell?'

'No, no!' she said hastily. 'I felt just a little faintish for a
moment--but it's nothing. I am not a bit of a fainting girl, Mr.
Ericson, I can assure you--never fainted in all my life. I have the
nerves of a bull-dog and the digestion of an ostrich.'

'You don't quite look like that now,' he said, in an almost
compassionate tone. He was puzzled. Something had undoubtedly happened
to make her start and pause like that. But he could only think of
something physical; it never occurred to him to suppose that anything he
had said could have caused it.

'Shall we go back to what we were talking about?' he asked.

'What we were talking about?' Already her new discovery had taken away
some of her sincerity, and inspired her with the sense of a necessity
for self-defence. Already, and for the first time in her life, she was
having recourse to one of the commonest, and, surely, one of the least
culpable, of the crafts and tricks of womanhood, she was trying not to
betray her love to the man who, so far as she knew, had not thought of
love for her.

'Well, you were accusing me of a want of frankness with you, and were
urging me to be more open?'

'Was I? Yes, of course I was; but I don't suppose I meant anything in
particular--and, then, I have no right.'

The Dictator grew more puzzled than ever.

'No right?' he asked. 'Yes--but I gave you the right when I told you I
was proud of your friendship, and I asked you to tell me of anything you
wanted to know. But _I_ wanted to speak to _you_ very frankly too.'

She looked at him in surprise and a sort of alarm.

'Yes, I did. I want to tell you why I can't treat you as if you were
Dick Langley. I want to tell you why I can't forget that you are Helena
Langley.'

This time the sound of the name was absolutely sweet in her ears. The
mere terror had gone already, and she would gladly have had him call her
'Helena,' 'Helena,' ever so many times over without the intermission of
a moment. 'Only perhaps I should get used to it then, and I shouldn't
feel it so much,' she thought, with a sudden correcting influence on a
first passionate desire. She steadied her nerves and asked him:

'Why can you not speak to me as if I were Dick Langley, and why can you
never forget that I am--Helena Langley?'

'Because you are Helena Langley for o