e moment the door closed on Jarvis.

"How are you?" he asked, and there was a note of subdued passion in his
tone.

"Fair," replied Ethel, without even looking at him. "Where is your
mother?" suggesting that much depended on the answer.

"Lying down," answered Ethel, truthfully and without any feeling.

"And Alaric?"

"In the garden."

"Then we have a moment or two--alone?" Brent put a world of meaning
into the suggestion.

"Very likely," said Ethel, picking up a score of Boheme and looking at
it as if she saw it for the first time: all the while watching him
through her half-closed eyes.

Brent went to her. "Glad to see me?" he asked.

"Why not?"

"I am glad to see you." He bent over her. "More than glad."

"Really?"

He sat beside her: "Ethel," he whispered intensely: "I am at the
Cross-roads."

"Oh?" commented Ethel, without any interest.

"It came last night."

"Did it?"

"This is the end--between Sybil and myself."

"Is it?"

"Yes--the end. It's been horrible from the first--horrible. There's not
a word of mine--not an action--she doesn't misunderstand."

"How boring," said Ethel blandly.

"She would see harm even in THIS!"

"Why?"

"She'd think I was here to--to--" he stopped.

"What?" innocently inquired Ethel.

"Make love to you," and he looked earnestly into her eyes.

She met his look quite frankly and astonished him with the question:
"Well? Aren't you?"

He rose anxiously: "Ethel!"

"Don't you always?" persisted Ethel.

"Has it seemed like that to you?"

"Yes," she answered candidly. "By insinuation: never straightforwardly."

"Has it offended you?"

"Then you admit it?"

"Oh," he cried passionately, "I wish I had the right to--to--" again he
wavered.

"Yes?" and Ethel looked straight at him.

"Make love to you straightforwardly." He felt the supreme moment had
almost arrived. Now, he thought, he would be rewarded for the long
waiting; the endless siege to this marvellous woman who concealed her
real nature beneath that marble casing of an assumed indifference.

He waited eagerly for her answer. When it came it shocked and revolted
him.

Ethel dropped her gaze from his face and said, with the suspicion of a
smile playing around her lips:

"If you had the right to make love to me straightforwardly--you
wouldn't do it."

He looked at her in amazement.

"What do you mean?" he gasped. "It's only because you haven't the right
that you do it--by suggestion,"