o detail of Winifred's dress or attitude escaped him.
He noted the glint of the firelight playing on the buckle of her
little slipper; he watched it climb over the sheen of the gray-silk
dress, higher, higher, till it reached the bare throat, and flushed
the already flushed cheek to a deeper carnation. He felt the appeal in
the girl's attitude as she leaned ever so little towards him. He
caught the tremulous note in her voice. His own was less steady than
its wont as he answered:--

"How do you know that the girl was not right in her first
estimate? For my part, I think a man who presumed to show the
disapproval you speak of, and to say disagreeable things on slight
acquaintance, fully justified her opinion of him; and if he seemed to
change later, I should think it probable that something in her had
shamed him out of his coldness and his selfishness. As for the
superciliousness, I should be inclined to set down the appearance of
that to the charge of an unconquerable shyness masquerading in the
guise of self-assertion,--I have known men like that,--but the other
qualities I believe were there. I suspect it was a reversal of the old
story of Pygmalion and Galatea, as if he were slowly turning from
stone to flesh, yet still held back by the old chill of stony
habit,--an imprisonment which could only be broken by a word from
her. Is there any chance that you will ever speak it--Winifred?"

"Oh, no--no!" the girl answered brokenly. "Don't say anything more!"

"I love you," Flint continued, as if the statement were necessary to
his vindication.

"Oh, but why do you tell me?"

"Because I choose to have you know,--because I must tell it. I love
you. I love you." He repeated the words with a persistence not to be
put aside. Winifred was inwardly furious with herself for her own
stupidity in giving him such an opening; but then, as she told
herself, who could have foreseen it, with this man of all men! The
shock of the surprise took her breath away, and robbed her of her
usual self-command. She still strove to take the situation lightly, to
treat it picturesquely, like a love-scene on a Watteau fan.

"Here is another proof of your generosity," she said, with a half
tremulous, wholly adorable little smile. "I asked for pardon and you
offer love."

Flint would not be put off so. "Ah, but I ask for so much more than I
offer," he said.

"And--if I cannot give it?"

"Why, then," he answered steadily, "I shall still carry