and then go back to
Paris to the lady he loves. But I should have the life I like--and the
Carruthers's emeralds are beautiful--and I love Branches--and--and----

"Her ladyship would like to see you, miss," said a footman.

So I went up the stairs.

Lady Ver was in a darkened room, soft pink blinds right down beyond the
half-drawn blue silk curtains.

"I have a fearful head, Evangeline," she said.

"Then I will smooth your hair," and I climbed up behind her and began to
run over her forehead with the tips of my fingers.

"You are really a pet, snake-girl," she said, "and you can't help it."

"I can't help what?"

"Being a witch. I knew you would hurt me when I first saw you, and I tried
to protect myself by being kind to you."

"Oh, dear Lady Ver!" I said, deeply moved. "I would not hurt you for the
world, and indeed you misjudge me. I have kept the bargain to the very
letter--and spirit."

"Yes, I know you have to the letter, at least, but why did Robert go out
of the box last night?" she demanded, wearily.

"He said he had got a chill, did not he?" I replied, lamely. She clasped
her hands passionately.

"A chill! You don't know Robert. He never had a chill in his life," she
said. "Oh, he is the dearest, dearest being in the world. He makes me
believe in good and all things honest. He isn't vicious, and isn't a prig,
and he knows the world, and he lives in its ways like the rest of us, and
yet he doesn't begin by thinking every woman is fair game and undermining
what little self-respect she may have left to her."

"Yes," I said. I found nothing else to say.

"If I had had a husband like that I would never have yawned," she went on;
"and besides, Robert is too masterful and would be too jealous to let one
divert one's self with another."

"Yes," I said again, and continued to smooth her forehead.

"He has sentiment, too--he is not matter-of-fact and brutal--and oh, you
should see him on a horse!--he is too, too beautiful." She stretched out
her arms in a movement of weariness that was pathetic and touched me.

"You have known him a long, long time?" I said, gently.

"Perhaps five years, but only casually until this season. I was busy with
some one else before. I have played with so many." Then she roused
herself up. "But Robert is the only one who has never made love to me.
Always dear and sweet, and treating me like a queen, as if I were too high
for that, and having his own way, and not caring a p