asked.

He bowed again in acquiescence, but with an air of discomfort. Elsa
looked at him, and from him to me. She flushed again, opened her lips,
but did not speak; then she bent her head down, and the blush spread
from neck to forehead.

"Go, my dear friend, go," said I.

He looked at me as though he would have spoken, almost as though he
would have protested or excused himself, inadmissible as such a thing
plainly was. I smiled at him, but waved my hand to dismiss him. He
turned and walked quickly away along the broad grass path. I watched him
till he was out of sight; all the while I was conscious of an utter
motionlessness in Elsa's figure beside me.

We must have sat there a long while in that unbroken eloquent silence,
hardly moving, never looking at one another. For her I was full of
grief; a wayward thing it was, indeed, of fate to fashion out of
Varvilliers' pleasant friendship this new weapon of attack. She had been
on the way to contentment--at least to resignation--but was now thrust
back. And she was ashamed. Poor child! why, in Heaven's name, should she
be ashamed? Should she not better have been ashamed of a fancy so ill
directed as to light on me when Varvilliers was by? For myself I seemed
to see rising before me the need for a new deception, a hoodwinking of
all the world, a secret that none must know or suspect, that she and I
must have between us for our own. The thing might pass; she was young.
Very likely, but it would not pass in time. There were the frocks. Ah,
but the wardrobe that half hid me would not suffice to obscure
Varvilliers. Or would it? I smiled for an instant. Instead of hiding
behind the wardrobe, I saw myself becoming part of it, blending with it.
Should I take rank as the four-hundred-and-first frock? "Willingly give
thyself up to Clotho, allowing her to spin thy thread into whatever
things she pleases." Even into a frock, O Emperor? Goes the philosophy
as far as that?

At last I turned to her and laid my hand gently on her clasped hands.

"Come, my dear," said I, "we must be going back. They'll all be looking
for us. We're too important people to be allowed to hide ourselves."

As I spoke I jumped to my feet, holding out my hand to help her to rise.
She looked up at me in an oddly pathetic way. I was afraid that she was
going to speak of the matter, and there was nothing to be gained by
speaking of it. "Give me your hand," I said with a smile, and she
obeyed. The pleadi