almost as much bewildered as if she had thrown her fan in his
face. 'You mustn't talk nonsense. I am speaking quite seriously.'

'So am I, I can assure you.'

'Well, well, to come to the point of what I had to say. People are
talking, and they tell each other that I am coming after you, to marry
you, for the sake of your money.'

'Oh!' She recoiled under the pain of these words. 'Oh, for shame,' she
exclaimed, 'they cannot say that--of you--of you?'

'Yes, they do. They say that I am a mere broken-down and penniless
political adventurer--that I am trying to recover my lost position in
Gloria--which I am, and by God's good help I shall recover it too.'

'Yes, with God's good help you shall recover it,' the girl exclaimed
fervently, and she put out her hand in a sudden impulse for him to take
it in his. The Dictator smiled sadly and did not touch the proffered
hand, and she let it fall, and felt chilled.

'Well, they say that I propose to make use of your money to start me on
my political enterprise. They talked of this in private, the society
papers talk of it now.'

'Well?' she asked, with a curious contracting of the eyebrows.

'Well, but that is painful--it is hurtful.'

'To you?'

'Oh, no,' he replied almost angrily, 'not to me. How could it be painful
and hurtful to me? At least, what do you suppose I should care about it?
What harm could it do me?'

'None whatever,' she calmly replied. She was now entirely mistress of
herself and her feelings again. 'No one who knows you would believe
anything of the kind--and for those who do not know you, you would say,
"Let them believe what they will."'

'Yes, they might believe anything they liked so far as I am concerned,'
he said scornfully. 'But then we must think of _you_. Good heaven!' he
suddenly broke off, 'how the journalism of England--at all events of
London--has changed since I used to be a Londoner! Fancy apparently
respectable journals, edited, I suppose, by men who call themselves
gentlemen--and who no doubt want to be received and regarded as
gentlemen--publishing paragraphs to give to all the world conjectures
about a young woman's fortune--a young woman whom they name, and about
the adventurers who are pursuing her in the hope of getting her
fortune.'

'You have been a long time out of London,' Helena said composedly. She
was quite happy now. If this was all, she need not care. She was afraid
at first that the Dictator meant to tell her that he