ould only make up my mind in one way
if you should insist. I should have to ask you to forget me entirely.
I wonder if you can see how I feel--how it hurts me to say this?"

She paused, perfectly poised, yet quite moved really, as charming a
figure as one would have wished to see--part Greek, part
Oriental--contemplative, calculating.

In that moment, for the first time, Braxmar realized that he was
talking to some one whom he could not comprehend really. She was
strangely self-contained, enigmatic, more beautiful perhaps because
more remote than he had ever seen her before. In a strange flash this
young American saw the isles of Greece, Cytherea, the lost Atlantis,
Cyprus, and its Paphian shrine. His eyes burned with a strange,
comprehending luster; his color, at first high, went pale.

"I can't believe you don't care for me at all, Miss Berenice," he went
on, quite strainedly. "I felt you did care about me. But here," he
added, all at once, with a real, if summoned, military force, "I won't
bother you. You do understand me. You know how I feel. I won't
change. Can't we be friends, anyhow?"

He held out his hand, and she took it, feeling now that she was putting
an end to what might have been an idyllic romance.

"Of course we can," she said. "I hope I shall see you again soon."

After he was gone she walked into the adjoining room and sat down in a
wicker chair, putting her elbows on her knees and resting her chin in
her hands. What a denouement to a thing so innocent, so charming! And
now he was gone. She would not see him any more, would not want to see
him--not much, anyhow. Life had sad, even ugly facts. Oh yes, yes,
and she was beginning to perceive them clearly.

Some two days later, when Berenice had brooded and brooded until she
could endure it no longer, she finally went to Mrs. Carter and said:
"Mother, why don't you tell me all about this Louisville matter so that
I may really know? I can see something is worrying you. Can't you
trust me? I am no longer a child by any means, and I am your daughter.
It may help me to straighten things out, to know what to do."

Mrs. Carter, who had always played a game of lofty though loving
motherhood, was greatly taken aback by this courageous attitude. She
flushed and chilled a little; then decided to lie.

"I tell you there was nothing at all," she declared, nervously and
pettishly. "It is all an awful mistake. I wish that dreadful man
could b