s into the air?"

"But naturally, I seek the reason, when I see you distrait and am
conscious of your neglect."

"I think it is for me to complain of that!"

"How can you say such things?"

"One has seen what one has seen, these last few days. I think you are
what that original Phinuit would call 'a fast worker,' Liane."

"What stupidity! If I seek to make myself liked, you know well it is
with a purpose."

"One hardly questions that."

"You judge harshly ... Michael."

Lanyard spent a look of astonishment on the darkness. He could not
remember that Liane had ever before called him by that name.

"Do I? Sorry...." His tone was listless. "But does it matter?"

"You know that to me nothing else matters."

Lanyard checked off on his fingers: "Swain, Collison, Mussey. Who next?
Why not I, as well as another?"

"Do you imagine for an instant that I class you with such riffraff?"

"Why, if you really want to know what I think, Liane: it seems to me
that all men in your sight are much the same, good for one thing only,
to be used to serve your ends. And who am I that you should hold me in
higher rating than any other man?"

"You should know I do," the woman breathed, so low he barely caught the
words and uttered an involuntary "Pardon?" before he knew he had
understood. So that she iterated in a clearer tone of protest: "You
should know I do--that I do esteem you as something more than other
men. Think what I owe to you, Michael; and then consider this, that of
all men whom I have known you alone have never asked for love."

He gave a quiet laugh. "There is too much humility in my heart."

"No," she said in a dull voice--"but you despise me. Do not deny it!"
She shifted impatiently in her chair. "I know what I know. I am no
fool, whatever you think of me.... No," she went on with emotion under
restraint: "I am a creature of fatality, me--I cannot hope to escape my
fate!"

He was silent a little in perplexed consideration of this. What did she
wish him to believe?

"But one imagines nobody can escape his fate."

"Men can, some of them; men such as you, rare as you are, know how to
cheat destiny; but women never. It is the fate of all women that each
shall some time love some man to desperation, and be despised. It is my
fate to have learned too late to love you, Michael----"

"Ah, Liane, Liane!"

"But you hold me in too much contempt to be willing to recognise the
truth."

"On the contrary, I admire