ou were aware of in this last year while I
familiarized myself with the interests that would soon be mine. No,
Herr Schwartzmann, your methods do not appeal to me; they are an
anachronism in the world of to-day."

Harkness was standing in stunned silence. "Delacoeur!" Diane was
Mademoiselle Delacoeur! But that name had been borne by the wealthiest
house of France! Old Delacoeur had died, possessed of millions beyond
counting--and he had left a daughter--Diane!

His mind could not grasp the full significance of this. But one thing
was clear: he could not aspire to the love of one of the queens of
Earth. Whatever faint hope that remained in his heart was lost.... The
cool voice was still speaking.

"You may leave now," she was saying--this girl who had been his
comrade, so unfailingly tender, so true and steady in the face of
incredible dangers. And Herr Schwartzmann took his dismissal as one
who cannot dispute his superior.

* * * * *

The room was silent. Harkness stood with downcast eyes that followed
with meticulous precision the intricacies of design in the rug on
which he stood. A voice was speaking. Not the cool, imperative voice
of Mademoiselle Delacoeur, mistress of vast estates, but the voice of
Diane--the Diane he had learned to love--and it tore at his emotions
until his mind was a whirl of conflicting thoughts.

A tender voice: and there was laughter in it and in the eyes that his
own came despondently to meet.

"Such a man, this Walter Harkness!" she was saying. "So hard, so
vindictive! Ah, the trouble he will make for me because of my
conscienceless agents!"

Harkness threw out his hands in a helpless gesture. "Don't taunt me,"
he said. "You know you have me tied. You've drawn the charges from all
my guns. There is nothing to be done."

Diane Delacoeur drew near. The raillery was gone from her voice, and
the hand that she placed on his arm was trembling.

"Nothing?" she inquired. "Then, if friendly rivalry is impossible,
would you consider, could there not be arranged--a merger of our
interests? I am not thinking now of wealth, of which you will have far
more than I: there are so much greater things in life--"

The eyes that clung to his were pleading now. And within them was the
light that Walter Harkness at last could understand and define. He
took the trembling hand in one of his that was suddenly strong, and
with the other he raised a lovely face that no long