upon him and to be
covering him up. Sonia came in with coffee. Dion put his cup, full, down
beside him on a table. He did not sip the coffee, nor did he light a
cigarette. While Mrs. Clarke was drinking her coffee he sat without
uttering a word.

She went to the piano. She played really well. Otherwise she would not
have played to him, or to any one. She was specially at home in the
music of Chopin, and had studied minutely many of the "Etudes." Now
she began to play the Etude in E flat. As she played she felt that
the intense nervous irritation which had possessed her was diminishing
slightly, was becoming more bearable. She played several of the Etudes,
and presently began the one in Thirds and Sixths which she had once
found abominably difficult. She remembered what a struggle she had had
with it before she had conquered it. She had been quite a girl then,
but already she had been a worshipper of will-power, and had resolved to
cultivate and to increase her own will. And she had used this Etude as
a means of testing herself. Over and over again, when she had almost
despaired of ever overcoming its difficulties, she had said to herself,
"Vouloir c'est pouvoir;" and at last she had succeeded in playing the
excessively difficult music as if it were quite easy to her. That had
been the first stepping upwards towards power.

She remembered that now and she set her teeth. "Vouloir c'est pouvoir."
She had proved the saying true again and again; she must prove it true
to-night. She willed her release; she would somehow obtain it.

Directly she finished the Etude she got up from the piano.

"You play that wonderfully well," Dion said, with a sort of hard
recognition of her merit, but with no enthusiasm. "Do you know that
there's something damnably competent in you?"

She stood looking down on him.

"I'm very glad there is. I don't care to bungle what I undertake."

"I believe I knew that the first time I saw you, standing by Echo. You
held my hand that day. Do you remember?"

He laughed faintly.

"No, I don't remember."

"The hand of Stamboul was upon me then. By God, we are under the yoke.
It was fated then that you should destroy me."

"Destroy you?"

"Yes. What's the good of what lies between us? You've destroyed me.
That's why you want to get rid of me. Your instinct tells you the work
is done, and you're right. But you must stick to the wreckage. After
all, it's your wreckage."

"No. A man can only dest