had spoken. Then Lady Fan's
little figure shook, her face turned away, and she tried to choke down
one small bitter sob, pressing her handkerchief desperately to her lips.

"Oh, Brook!" she cried, a moment later, and her tiny teeth tore the edge
of the handkerchief audibly in the stillness.

"It's not your fault," said the man, with an attempt at gentleness in
his voice. "I couldn't blame you, if I were brute enough to wish to."

"Blame me! Oh, really--I think you're mad, you know!"

"Besides," continued the young man, philosophically, "I think we ought
to be glad, don't you?"

"Glad?"

"Yes--that we are not going to break our hearts now that it's over."

Clare thought his tone horribly business-like and indifferent.

"Oh no! We sha'n't break our hearts any more! We are not children." Her
voice was thin and bitter, with a crying laugh in it.

"Look here, Fan!" said Brook suddenly. "This is all nonsense. We agreed
to play together, and we've played very nicely, and now you have to go
home, and I have got to stay here, whether I like it or not. Let us be
good friends and say good-bye, and if we meet again and have nothing
better to do, we can play again if we please. But as for taking it in
this tragical way--why, it isn't worth it."

The young girl crouching in the shadow felt as though she had been
struck, and her heart went out with indignant sympathy to the little
lady in white.

"Do you know? I think you are the most absolutely brutal, cynical
creature I ever met!" There was anger in the voice, now, and something
more--something which Clare could not understand.

"Well, I'm sorry," answered the man. "I don't mean to be brutal, I'm
sure, and I don't think I'm cynical either. I look at things as they
are, not as they ought to be. We are not angels, and the millennium
hasn't come yet. I suppose it would be bad for us if it did, just now.
But we used to be very good friends last year. I don't see why we
shouldn't be again."

"Friends! Oh no!"

Lady Fan turned from him and made a step or two alone, out through the
moonlight, towards the house. Brook did not move. Perhaps he knew that
she would come back, as indeed she did, stopping suddenly and turning
round to face him again.

"Brook," she began more softly, "do you remember that evening up at the
Acropolis--at sunset? Do you remember what you said?"

"Yes, I think I do."

"You said that if I could get free you would marry me."

"Yes." The man's to