ne thing, and not Dick,' he said
with a smile. 'Because you are not a young man, but a very charming and
beautiful young woman.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed, with an almost angry movement of her hand.

'I am not paying compliments,' he said gently. 'Between us let there be
truth, as you said yourself in your quotation from Goethe the other day.
I am setting out the facts before you. Even if I could forget that you
are Helena Langley, there are others who could not forget it either for
you or for me.'

'I don't understand what you mean,' she said wonderingly.

'You would not understand, of course. I am afraid I must explain to you.
You will forgive me?'

'I have not the least idea,' she said impetuously, 'what I am to
understand, or what I am to forgive. Mr. Ericson, do for pity's sake be
plain with me.'

'I have resolved to be,' he said gloomily.

'What on earth has been happening? Why have you changed in this way to
me?'

'I have not changed.'

'Well, tell me the whole story,' she said impatiently, 'if there is a
story.'

'There is a story,' he said, with a melancholy smile, 'a very silly
story--but still a story. Look here, Miss Langley: even if you do not
know that you are beautiful and charming and noble-hearted and good--as
I well know that you are all this and ever so much more--you must know
that you are very rich.'

'Yes, I do know that, and I am glad of it sometimes, and I hate it
sometimes. I don't know yet whether I am going to be glad of it or to
hate it now. Go on, Mr. Ericson, please, and tell me what is to follow
this prologue about my disputed charms and virtues--for I assure you
there are many people, some women among the rest, who think me neither
good-looking nor even good--and my undisputed riches.' She was plucking
up a spirit now, and was much more like her usual self. She felt herself
tied to the stake, and was determined to fight the course.

'Do you know,' he asked, 'that people say I am coming here after you?'

She blushed crimson, but quickly pulled herself together. She was equal
to anything now.

'Is that all?' she asked carelessly. 'I should have thought they said a
great deal more and a great deal worse than that.'

He looked at her in some surprise.

'What else do you suppose they could have said?'

'I fancied,' she answered with a laugh, 'that they were saying I went
everywhere after you.'

'Come, come,' he said, after a moment's pause, during which the Dictator
seemed