ide her; he was an atom in
the path of the torrent, a thing that went down and was left behind as
the flood swept over and by him. As suddenly as it began the torrent was
checked. A hot flush seared her neck, her cheeks, her brow.

"What a fool you must think me!" she cried in dire chagrin. "What a
stupid fool!"

He had not taken his eyes from her transfigured face. He had listened
with his jaw set, his lips tightly pressed, his brow dark with anger.

"I don't think that," he said shortly. "You have merely lost your head,
as any woman might, over a picturesque, good-looking soldier of fortune.
Perhaps I should not be surprised, nor even shocked by what you've just
told me. He is the sort that women do fall in love with,--and I suppose
they are not to be blamed for it. No, I do not think you are a fool.
When one reflects that such experienced heads as those possessed by
the irreproachable Obosky, the immaculate Amori,--to say nothing of the
estimable lady we are pleased to call the 'Empress of Brazil,'--when
such heads as theirs are turned by a man it is high time to admit that
he has something more than personal magnetism. I am wondering how far
the contagion has really spread. There is a difference between
contagion and infection, you know. Infection is the result of
personal contact,--contagion is something in the air. This epidemic
of infatuation very plainly is in two forms. It appears to be both
infectious and contagious. I rather fancy the amiable Obosky has
selected the former type of the prevailing malady. Percivalitis, I
believe, is the name it goes by."

There was no mistaking the significance of his words. The implication
was clear, even though veiled in the heaviest sarcasm. He had the
satisfaction of seeing the colour ebb from her cheek. Her face being
averted, he missed the swift flicker of pain that rushed to her eyes
and, departing, took away with it the soft light that had glowed in them
the instant before. He had touched a concealed canker,--the sensitive
spot that had been the real cause of her sleepless, troubled
nights,--the thing she had refused in her pride to accept as the real
source of discomfort.

Down in her soul lay the poison of jealousy, a cruel and malignant
influence that until now had been subdued by a mind stubbornly unwilling
to recognize its existence.

In the eagerness to supply herself with additional reasons for hating
Percival, she had given her imagination a rather free r