the
good of being a woman, if you didn't have your own home, and your own
husband and children! Then she looked at him with her clear, golden
eyes, and inquired how it was with himself. Was he in love?

"No!" answered Guest, but, even as he spoke, he knew in his heart that
he lied. In the guise of a Yankee stranger, who embodied in herself all
the traits which he most condemned, the one woman of his life had
appeared. He loved--and the woman whom he loved was Cornelia Briskett!

After that, conversation languished. Guest was too much bewildered by
the sudden realisation of his position to wish to talk, and Cornelia had
developed a headache as a result of the morning's emotion. She was glad
to be quiet; to allow herself to be led about, and cared for, and told
what she must do.

"Just like a `nice young girl'!" she said, laughingly as they parted in
the lounge of the hotel. "If I lived over here long enough--there's no
telling--I might grow into a Moss Rose myself!"

"I wish you would! I wish you would! Won't you try?" Guest cried
eagerly. He, himself, did not know what he really meant by the inquiry,
for the words had sprung to his lips almost without thought. He was as
much startled by the sound of them as was Cornelia herself. He saw the
dismay in her eyes, the dawning comprehension; he saw something else
also--the first flicker of self-consciousness, the first tell-tale droop
of the lids. She put him off with a light answer, and he went out to
pace the streets until the night closed around him. ... What was this
that had happened, and what was it going to mean? One week--a week to
the day since he had first met this girl and conceived a violent dislike
to her on the spot. Voice, accent, and manner had alike jarred on his
nerves: she had appeared in every respect the opposite to the decorous,
soft-voiced, highly-bred, if somewhat inane, damsel who represented his
ideal of feminine charm. One week ago! What magic did she possess,
this little red-haired, white-faced girl, to make such short work of the
scruples of a lifetime? What was this mysterious feminine charm which
blinded his senses to everything but just herself, and the dearness of
her, and the longing to have her for his own? The jarring element had
not disappeared, the difference of thought still existed, but for the
moment he was oblivious of their existence. For the first time in his
three-and-thirty years he was in love, and had r