not exist, found himself in a somewhat ludicrous
situation. Too proud to extort a promise of secrecy from Mrs. Bayford,
he knew the value of his indiscretion--if indiscretion it were--to any
purveyor of tea-table gossip; and while Diane and he remained in the
same relative positions he was sure it was being bruited about, with his
own authority, that they were to become man and wife. It did not
diminish the absurdity of the situation that he was debarred from
proposing and settling the affair at once by the grotesque fact that he
actually had not time.

There was certainly little opportunity for lovemaking in those hurried
days of preparing for his long absence in South America. He was often
obliged to leave home by eight in the morning, rarely returning except
to go wearily to bed. Though nothing had been said to him, he had more
than one reason for suspecting that Mrs. Bayford was at work; and, at
the odd minutes when he saw Diane, it seemed to him as if her clearness
of look was extinguished by an expression of perplexity.

He would have reproached himself more keenly for his lack of energy in
overcoming obstacles had it not been for the fact that, owing to their
peculiar position as members of one household, and that household his,
he was planning to ask Diane to become his wife on that occasion when he
would also be bidding her adieu. She would thus be spared the
difficulties of a trying situation, while she would have the season of
his absence in which to adjust her mind to the revolution in her life.
He resolved to adhere to this intention, the more especially as a small
family dinner at Gramercy Park, from which he was to go directly to his
steamer, would give him the exact combination of circumstances he
desired.

When, after dinner, Miss Lucilla's engineering of the company allowed
him to find himself alone with Diane in the library, he made her sit
down by the fireside, while he stood, his arm resting on the
mantelpiece, as on the afternoon of their first serious interview, over
a year before. As on that other occasion, so, too, on this, she sat
erect, silent, expectant, waiting for him to speak. What was coming she
did not know; but she felt once more his commanding dominance, with its
power to ordain, prescribe, and regulate the conditions of her life.

"Doesn't this make you think of--our first long talk together?"

"I often think of it," Diane said, faintly, trying to assume that they
were entering