walk a little slower. I told you I had
something to say to you."

"I don't want to hear it. There's no use talking about it. I'll say the
same thing if you ask me for a hundred years."

A chuckle broke from him while he stood jauntily fingering the diamond
in his tie, as if it were some talisman which imparted fresh confidence.
Oh, it was useless to try to put a man like that in his place--for his
place seemed to be everywhere!

"Well, it won't do any harm," he said at last. "As long as I like to
listen to it."

"I wish you would leave me alone."

"But suppose I can't?" He was still chaffing. He would continue to
chaff, she was convinced, if he were dying. "Suppose I ain't made that
way?"

"I don't care how you're made. You may talk to Father if you like; but
I'm going upstairs to take off my hat."

His chuckle swelled into a roar of laughter. "Talk to Father! Haven't I
been talking to Father over at the Capitol for the last three hours?"

They had reached the gate beyond the monument, and swinging suddenly
round, she started back toward the house. As she passed him he touched
the end of her fur stole with a gesture that was almost imperative. His
eyes had dropped their veil of pleasantry, and she was aware, with a
troubled mind, that he was holding back something as a last resource if
she continued to prove intractable. Again and again she had this feeling
when she was with him--an uneasy intuition that his good humour was not
entirely unassumed, that he was concealing a dangerous weapon beneath
his offensive familiarity.

"After all I may be going to surprise you," he said lightly enough, yet
with this disturbing implication of some meaning that she could not
discern. "What if I tell you that I've no intention of making love to
you?"

"You mean there is something else you want to see me about?" She
breathed a sigh of relief, and her light steps fell gradually into the
measure of his. Her conscience pricked her unpleasantly when she
remembered that there had been a time when she would have spoken less
curtly. Well, what of that? It was characteristic of her energetic mind
that past mistakes were dismissed as soon as they were discovered. When
one started out in life knowing nothing, one had to learn as best one
could, that was all! Every day was a new one, so why bother about
yesterday? There was trouble enough in the world as it was, without
dragging back what was over.

"Please tell me what it is," she