ot think her wanting in feeling. He thought her nobly considerate,
generous and kind. He thought she wanted to save him from embarrassment
on her account, and to let him know that they were to continue good
friends, true friends, in spite of what anybody might choose to say
about them; and that there was to be no thought of anything but
friendship. This was Helena's meaning in one sense, but not in another
sense. She took it for granted that he was not in love with her, and she
wished to make it clear to him that there was not the slightest reason
for him to cease to be her friend because he could not be her lover.
That was her meaning. Up to a certain point it was the meaning that he
ascribed to her, but in her secret heart there was still a feeling which
she did not express and which he could not divine.

'Then we are still to be friends?' he said. 'I am not to feel bound to
cut myself off from seeing you because of all this talk?'

'Not unless you wish it.'

'Oh, wish it!' and he made an energetic gesture.

'I have talked very boldly to you,' Helena said--'cheekily, I fancy some
people would call it; but I do so hate misunderstandings, and having
others and myself made uncomfortable, and I do so prefer my happiness to
my dignity! You see, I hadn't much of a mother's care, and I am a sort
of wild-growth, and you must make allowance for me and forgive me, and
take me for what I am.'

'Yes, I take you cordially for what you are,' the Dictator exclaimed,
'the noblest and the dearest girl in the world--to me.'

Helena flushed a little. But she was determined that the meaning of the
flush was not to be known.

'Come,' she said, with a wholly affected coquetry of manner, 'I wonder
if you have said that to any other girls--and if so, how many?'

The Dictator was not skilled in the wiles of coquetry. He fell
innocently into the snare.

'The truth is,' he said simply, 'I hardly know any girl but you.'

Surely the Dictator had spoken out one of the things we ought to wish
not to have said. It amused Helena, however, and greatly relieved
her--in her present mood.

'Come,' she exclaimed, with a little spurt of laughter which was a
relief to the tension of her feelings; 'the compliment, thank heaven, is
all gone! I _must_ be the dearest girl in the world to you--I can't help
it, whatever my faults--if you do not happen to know any other girl!'

'Oh, I didn't meant _that_.'

'Didn't mean even that? Didn't even mean t