"That's better. Dear Hubert---- may I call you Hubert?"--he answered with a little pressure of his arm--"if you really care for me, I can say what I was going to say; but, if you don't--if that was how you made a fool of yourself by saying so when you did not mean it--then tell me, and I shall know whether to speak or to hold my tongue." She spoke forcibly, with a directness and simplicity which enchanted Hubert in spite of himself. He assured her that he loved her from the bottom of his heart, that she might speak freely, and that he would be guided, if possible, by what she said--he knew that she was good and wise and generous. And then he kissed her once more on the lips, and she believed his words. She began to speak, blushing a little as she did so. "I only want to understand. You are not married, Hubert?" "My darling--no!" "And you said last night that you were not engaged?" "I am not engaged," he said more slowly. "You have--some other engagement--entanglement--of which I do not know?" "No, Cynthia." "Then," she, said, facing him with a boldness which he thoroughly admired, "why do you want to draw back from what you said to me last night?" Hubert looked more than serious--he looked unhappy. "Draw back," he said slowly--"that is a hard expression!" "It is a hard thing," she rejoined. "Cynthia, if I had suspected--if you had ever given me any reason to suppose--that you were willing to think of me as more than a friend, I would not have spoken. I am not worthy of you; I can but drag you back from a brilliant career; it is not fair to you." The girl stood regarding him meditatively; there was neither fear nor sign of yielding in her eyes. "That does not sound natural," she said; "it does not sound quite real. Excuse me, but you would not, merely as a novelist, make your hero try to back out of an engagement for that reason. If he gave it, the reader would know at once there was something else--something in the background. I believe that the amiable heroine would accept the explanation and go away broken-hearted. But I," said Cynthia, with a little stamp of impatience--"I am not amiable, and I mean neither to believe in your explanation nor to break my heart; and so, Mr. Hubert Lepel, you had better tell me what this is really all about." "Ah, Cynthia, I had better let you think me a fool or a brute than lead you into this!" cried Hubert. "But I should never think you a fool or a brute, whatever you did." "You do not know what you might think of me--in other circumstances." "Try," she said, almost in a whisper, slipping her hand into his. But he shook his head and looked down, knitting his brows uneasily.