worthy!
You are full of courage and unselfishness, and, I could swear, faithful
as steel."

"Thank you--not dogs," she laughed. "I like steel. I hope to be a good
sword in your hand, my knight--or shield, or whatever purpose you put me
to."

She went on smiling, and seeming to draw closer to him and throw down
defences.

"After all, Wilfrid, the task of loving your good piece of steel won't
be less thoroughly accomplished because you find it difficult. Sir, I do
not admit any protestation. Handsome faces, musical voices, sly manners,
and methods that I choose not to employ, make the business easy to men."

"Who discover that the lady is not steel," said Wilfrid. "Need she, in
any case, wear so much there?"

He pointed, flittingly as it were, with his little finger to the slope
of her neck.

She turned her wrist, touching the spot: "Here? You have seen, then,
that it is something worn?"

There followed a delicious interplay of eyes. Who would have thought
that hers could be sweet and mean so much?

"It is something worn, then? And thrown aside for me only, Charlotte?"

"For him who loves me," she said.

"For me!"

"For him who loves me," she repeated.

"Then it is for me!"

She had moved back, showing a harder figure, or the "I love you, love
you!" would have sounded with force. It came, though not so vehemently
as might have been, to the appeal of a soft fixed look.

"Yes, I love you, Charlotte; you know that I do."

"You love me?"

"Yes."

"Say it."

"I love you! Dead, inanimate Charlotte, I love you!"

She threw out her hand as one would throw a bone to a dog.

"My living, breathing, noble Charlotte," he cried, a little bewitched,
"I love you with all my heart!"

It surprised him that her features should be gradually expressing less
delight.

"With all your heart?"

"Could I give you a part?"

"It is done, sometimes," she said, mock-sadly. Then, in her original
voice: "Good. I never credited that story of you and the girl Emilia. I
suppose what people say is a lie?"

Her eyes, in perfect accordance with the tone she had adopted, set a
quiet watch on him.

"Who says it?" he thundered, just as she anticipated.

"It's not true?"

"Not true!--how can it be true?"

"You never loved Emilia Belloni?--don't love her now?--do not love her
now? If you have ever said that you love Emilia Belloni, recant, and you
are forgiven; and then go, for I think I hear Georgiana below. Quick!
I am