m some difficult feat
of legerdemain, until that feat has passed from attempt merely into
accomplished fact.

"And, indirectly, that is where my heart-sickness comes in," she
continued, with a return to something of her former abstraction and
gloom. "I was coming away, coming back here--and I was very happy. It
is not often one can say that. And then--_pouf_---like that," she
brought her hands smartly together, "the charming bubble burst! For,
upon the very church steps, I met a man whom I have every cause to
hate."

As she spoke, the fog seemed to draw away, burnt up by the great,
flaming sun-god there. Richard's brain grew clear--clearer, indeed,
than in perfect health--and his still face grew more still than was,
even to it, quite natural.

"Well?" he asked, almost harshly.

And Helen, whose faith in her own diplomacy had momentarily suffered
eclipse, rejoiced. For the tone of his voice betrayed not disgust, but
anxiety. It stirred her as a foretaste of victory. And victory had
become a maddening necessity to her. Destournelle had forced her hand.
His natural infirmity of purpose relieved her of the fear he could work
her any great mischief. Yet his ingenuity, inspired by wounded vanity,
might prove beyond her calculations. It is not always safe to forecast
the future by experience of the past in relation to such a being as
Destournelle! Therefore it became of supreme importance, before that
gentleman had time further to obtrude himself, to bind Richard Calmady
by some speech, some act, from which there was no going back. And more
than just that. The sight of her ex-lover, though she now loathed
him--possibly just because she so loathed him--provoked passion in her.
It was as though only in a new intrigue could she rid herself of the
remembrance of the old intrigue which was now so detestable to her. She
craved to do him that deepest, most ultimate, despite. And passion
cried out in her. The sight of him, though she loathed him, had made
her utterly weary of chastity. All of which emotions--but held as
hounds in a leash, ready to be slipped when the psychological moment
arrived, and by no means to be slipped until the arrival of
it--dictated the tenor of her next speech.

"Well," she answered, with an air of half-angry sincerity altogether
convincing, "I really don't know that I am particularly proud of the
episode. I know I was careless, that I laid myself open to the
invidious comment, which is usually the r