so much since they had last met that she scarcely dared
to look at him, even after the confusion of greetings and formalities
was over, and he had answered Lady Throckmorton's questions, and
explained to her the cause of his protracted wandering--for, though she
did not meet his eyes, she knew that he was altered, too. He looked worn
and fatigued, she thought, and there was a new unrest in his expression.

It was fully a quarter of an hour before he left Lady Throckmorton and
came to her side; but when he did so, something in his face or air,
perhaps, made Victor Maurien give way to his greater need in an impulse
of generosity.

There was a moment's silence between them after he sat down, during
which, in her excited shyness, Theo only looked at Marguerite with a
fluttering of rich, warm color on her cheeks. It was he who ended the
pause himself.

"Are you glad to see me, Theodora?" he said, in a low, unsteady voice.

"Yes," she answered, tremulously. "I am glad."

"Thank you," he returned. "And yet it was chance that brought me here. I
was not even sure you were in Paris until I saw you from the other side
of the house a few moments ago. I wonder, my dear Theodora," slipping
into the old careless, whimsical manner, "I wonder if I am doomed to be
a rascal?"

It might be that her excitement made her nervous; at any rate there was
a choking throb in her throat, as she answered him.

"If you please," she whispered, "don't."

His face softened, as if he was sorry for her girlish distress. He was
struck with a fancy that if he were cruel enough to persist, he could
make her cry. And then the relapse in the old manner, had only been a
relapse after all, and had even puzzled himself a little. So he was
quiet for a while.

"And so it is Faust again," he said, breaking the silence. "Do you
remember what you said to me the first time you saw Faust, Theodora--the
night the rose-colored satin came home? Do you remember telling me that
you could die for love's sake? I wonder if you have changed your mind,
among all the fine people you have seen, and all the fine speeches you
have heard. I met one of Lady Throckmorton's acquaintances in Bordeaux,
a few days ago, and he told me a wonderful story of a young lady who was
then turning the wise heads of half the political Parisians--a sort of
enchanted princess, with a train of adorers ready to kiss the hem of her
garment."

He was endeavoring to be natural, and was failing wr