change your mind, please remember
that I have not changed mine. For two years I've done everything I can
to make you marry me whether you would or not, and you've forgiven me
for trying to carry you off against your will, and for several other
things, but you are no nearer to caring for me ever so little than you
were the first day we met. You "like" me! That's the worst of it!'

'I'm not so sure of that,' Margaret answered, raising her eyes for a
moment and then looking at her hands again.

He turned his head slowly, but there was a startled look in his eyes.

'Do you feel as if you could hate me a little, for a change?' he
asked.

'No.'

'There's only one other thing,' he said in a low voice.

'Perhaps,' Margaret answered, in an even lower tone than his. 'I'm not
quite sure to-day.'

Logotheti had known her long, and he now resisted the strong impulse
to reach out and take the hand she would surely have let him hold in
his for a moment. She was not disappointed because he neither
spoke nor moved, nor took any sudden advantage of her rather timid
admission, for his silence made her trust him more than any passionate
speech or impulsive action could have done.

'I daresay I am wrong to tell you even that much,' she went on
presently, 'but I do so want to play fair. I've always despised women
who cannot make up their minds whether they care for a man or not. But
you have found out my secret; I am two people in one, and there
are days when each makes the other dreadfully uncomfortable! You
understand.'

'And it's the Cordova that neither likes me nor hates me just at this
moment,' suggested Logotheti. 'Margaret Donne sometimes hates me and
sometimes likes me, and on some days she can be quite indifferent too!
Is that it?'

'Yes. That's it.'

'The only question is, which of you is to be mistress of the house,'
said Logotheti, smiling, 'and whether it is to be always the same one,
or if there is to be a perpetual hide-and-seek between them!'

'Box and Cox,' suggested Margaret, glad of the chance to say something
frivolous just then.

'I should say Hera and Aphrodite,' answered the Greek, 'if it did not
look like comparing myself to Adonis!'

'It sounds better than Box and Cox, but I have forgotten my
mythology.'

'Hera and Aphrodite agreed that each should keep Adonis one-third of
the year, and that he should have the odd four months to himself. Now
that you are the Cordova, if you could come to some s