an
unsteady smile.

"Think what?" I asked, but without the necessary snap.

"What we were talking of," she replied wincing, but forgiving me again.
"If I once thought that, it was pretty to me while it lasted and it
lasted but a little time. I have long been sure that your kindness to me
was due to some other reason."

"Ma'am," said I very honestly, "I know not what was the reason. My
concern for you was in the beginning a very fragile and even a selfish
thing, yet not altogether selfish, for I think that what first stirred
it was the joyous sway of the little nursery governess as she walked
down Pall Mall to meet her lover. It seemed such a mighty fine thing to
you to be loved that I thought you had better continue to be loved for a
little longer. And perhaps having helped you once by dropping a letter
I was charmed by the ease with which you could be helped, for you must
know that I am one who has chosen the easy way for more than twenty
years."

She shook her head and smiled. "On my soul," I assured her, "I can think
of no other reason."

"A kind heart," said she.

"More likely a whim," said I.

"Or another woman," said she.

I was very much taken aback.

"More than twenty years ago," she said with a soft huskiness in her
voice, and a tremor and a sweetness, as if she did not know that in
twenty years all love stories are grown mouldy.

On my honour as a soldier this explanation of my early solicitude for
Mary was one that had never struck me, but the more I pondered it now--.
I raised her hand and touched it with my lips, as we whimsical old
fellows do when some gracious girl makes us to hear the key in the lock
of long ago. "Why, ma'am," I said, "it is a pretty notion, and there may
be something in it. Let us leave it at that."

But there was still that accursed dedication, lying, you remember,
beneath the blotting-pad. I had no longer any desire to crush her with
it. I wished that she had succeeded in writing the book on which her
longings had been so set.

"If only you had been less ambitious," I said, much troubled that she
should be disappointed in her heart's desire.

"I wanted all the dear delicious things," she admitted contritely.

"It was unreasonable," I said eagerly, appealing to her intellect.
"Especially this last thing."

"Yes," she agreed frankly, "I know." And then to my amazement she added
triumphantly, "But I got it."

I suppose my look admonished her, for she continued apol