France should suffer because I myself have found it difficult to
endorse Mr. Law's personal code of morals."

It was the third day after Law's entry into Paris, and the first time
for more than two long years that he found himself alone with the Lady
Catharine Knollys. His eagerness might have excused his impetuous and
boastful speech.

As for the Lady Catharine, that one swift, electric moment at the street
curb had well-nigh undone more than two years of resolve. She had heard
herself, as it were in a dream, promising that this man might come. She
had found herself later in her own apartments, panting, wide-eyed,
afraid. Some great hand, unseen, uninvited, mysterious, had swept
ruthlessly across each chord of womanly reserve and resolution which so
long she had held well-ordered and absolutely under control. It was
self-distrust, fear, which now compelled her to take refuge in this
woman's fence of speech with him. "Surely," argued she with herself, "if
love once dies, then it is dead forever, and can never be revived.
Surely," she insisted to herself, "my love is dead. Then--ah, but then
was it dead? Can my heart grow again?" asked the Lady Catharine of
herself, tremblingly. This was that which gave her pause. It was this
also which gave to her cheek its brighter color, to her eye a softer
gleam; and to her speech this covering shield of badinage.

Yet all her defenses were in a way to be fairly beaten down by the
intentness of the other. All things he put aside or overrode, and would
speak but of himself and herself, of his plans, his opportunities, and
of how these were concerned with himself and with her.

"There are those who judge not so harshly as yourself, Madam," resumed
Law. "His Grace the regent is good enough to believe that my studies
have gone deeper than the green cloth of the gaming table. Now, I tell
you, my time has come--my day at last is here. I tell you that I shall
prove to you everything which I said to you long ago, back there in old
England. I shall prove to you that I have not been altogether an idler
and a trifler. I shall bring to you, as I promised you long ago, all the
wealth, all the distinction--"

"But such speech is needless, Mr. Law," came the reply. "I have all the
wealth I need, nor do I crave distinction, save of my own selection."

"But you do not dream! This is a day unparalleled. There will be such
changes here as never yet were known. Within a week you shall hear of my