thickening with years, and his soul was growing hidden still
deeper beneath it all. From the beginning something in Theodora had
spoken to the best in him. He was conscious of feelings of
dissatisfaction with himself when he left her, of disgust with the days
of unmeaning aims.

He had begun out of idle admiration; he had continued from inclination;
but to-night it was _plus fort que lui_, and he knew he was in love.

The habit of indulging any emotion which gave him pleasure was still
strong upon him; it was not yet he would begin to analyze where this
passion might lead him--might lead them both.

It was too deliciously sweet to sit there and whisper to her sophistries
and reasonings, to take her sensitive fancy into new worlds, to play
upon her feelings--those feelings which he realized were as fine and as
full of tone as the sounds which could be drawn from a Stradivarius
violin.

It was a night of new worlds for them both, for if Theodora had never
looked into any world at all, he also had never even imagined one which
could be so quite divine as this--this shared with her in the moonlight,
with the magic of the Tzigane music and the soft spring night.

He had just sufficient mastery over himself left not to overstep the
bounds of respectful and deep interest in her. He did not speak a word
of love. There was no actual sentence which Theodora felt obliged to
resent--and yet through it all was the subtle insinuation that they were
more than friends--or would be more than friends.

And when it was all over, and Theodora's pulses were calmer as she lay
alone on her pillow, she had a sudden thrill of fear. But she put it
aside--it was not her nature to think herself the object of passions. "I
would be a very silly woman to flatter myself so," she said to herself,
and then she went to sleep.

Lord Bracondale stayed awake for hours, but he did not sup with
Esclarmonde de Chartres or Marion de Beauvoison. And the Cafe de
Paris--and Maxims--and the afterwards--saw him no more.

Once again these houris asked each other, "Mais qu'est-ce qu'il a! Ce
bel Hector? Ou se cache-t-il?"

VI

Before she went to bed in her hotel in the Rue de Rivoli, Monica
Ellerwood wrote to her aunt.

"PARIS, _May 15th_.

"MY DEAR AUNT MILLY,--We have had a delicious little week,
Jack and I, quite like an old honeymoon pair--and to-day we ran
across Hector, who has remained hidden until now. He is looking