e," he added. "You must think me very foolish to be
mooning about like this."

"Can I help you?" she asked, half suffocated by the question. "Perhaps
there might be something I could do that would bring the one you want
to you."

It was the crucial point in the conversation. She held her breath as
she awaited his answer. She knew he was no adept at the half-meanings
and near-confessions of flirtation, and that she could depend upon his
words and actions to be genuine.

He looked at her calmly without the additional beat of a pulse. His
color had died down and left him pale. He was considering.

"You have done much for me," he said at last, "and I shall never
forget it, but in this matter even _you_ could not help me. Only the
Almighty could do it by direct intervention, and I don't believe He
works that way in this century," Code smiled faintly.

As for Elsa, she felt the grip as of an icy hand upon her heart. It
was some one else that he meant. Was it possible that all her
carefully planned campaign had come to this miserable failure? Had she
come this far only to lose all?

The expression of her features did not change, and she sought
desperately to control her emotion, but she could not prevent two
great tears from welling up in her eyes and slowly rolling down her
cheeks.

Code sat startled and nonplused. Only once before in his life had he
seen a woman cry, and that was when Nellie broke down in his mother's
house after the fire. But the cause for that was evident, and the very
fact of her tears had been a relief to him. Now, apparently without
rime or reason, Elsa Mallaby was weeping.

The sight went to his heart as might the scream of a child in pain. He
wondered with a panicky feeling whether he had hurt her in any way.

"I say, Elsa," he cried, "what's the matter? Don't do that. If I've
done anything--" He was on his feet and around the little table in an
instant. He took her left hand in his left and put his right on her
shoulder, speaking to her in broken, incoherent sentences.

But his words, gentle and almost endearing, emphasized the feeling of
miserable self-pity that had taken hold of her and she suddenly sobbed
aloud.

"Elsa, dear," he cried, beside himself with uncertainty, "what is it?
Tell me. You've done so much for me, please let me do something for
you if I can."

"You can't, Code," she said, "unless it's in your heart," and then she
bowed her beautiful head forward upon her bare a