play with me!" she burst out. "My friend, you have never yet
given me a serious word."

"Nor any one else," I answered. "My dear Desiree, do you not know that
I am incapable of seriousness? Nothing in the world is worth it."

"At least, you need not pretend," she retorted. "I meant once for you
to die. You know it. And since you pretend not to understand me, I
ask you--these are strange words from my lips--will you forgive me?"

"There is nothing to forgive."

"My friend, you are becoming dull. An evasive answer should always be
a witty one. Must I ask you again?"

"That--depends," I answered, hardly knowing what to say.

"On--"

"On whether or not you were serious, once upon a time, when you made
a--shall we call it a confession? If you were, I offended you in my
own conceit, but let us be frank. I thought you were acting, and I
played my role. I do not yet believe that you were; I am not conceited
enough to think it possible."

"I do not say," Desiree began; then she stopped and added hastily: "But
that is past. I shall not tell you that again. Perhaps I forgot
myself. Perhaps it was a pretty play. You have not answered me."

I looked at her. Strange and terrible as her experiences and
sufferings had been, she had lost little of her beauty. Her face was
rendered only the more delicate by its pallor. Her white and perfect
body, only half seen in the half-darkness, conveyed a sense of the
purest beauty with no hint of immodesty.

But I was moved not by what I saw, but by what I knew. I had admired
her always as Le Mire; but her bravery, her hardihood, her sympathy for
others under circumstances when any other woman would have been
thinking only of herself--had these awakened in my breast a feeling
stronger than admiration?

I did not know. But my voice trembled a little as I said: "I need not
answer you, Desiree. I repeat that there is nothing to forgive. You
sought revenge, then sacrificed it; but still revenge is yours."

She looked at me for a moment in silence, then said slowly: "I do not
understand you."

For reply I took her hand in my own from where it lay idly on my knee,
and, carrying it to my lips, pressed a long kiss on the top of each of
the slender white fingers. Then I held the hand tight between both of
mine as I asked simply, looking into her eyes:

"Do you understand me now?"

Another silence.

"My revenge," she breathed.

I nodded and again pressed her hand