* * * * * Presently she pushed him gently away--held him there at arm's length. "This is too absurd," she murmured, and drew him once more towards her with a choking little laugh. "I came for something quite different!" "What does it matter what you came for, so long as you stay," he answered. "Say that you came to bring a glimpse of paradise to a lonely man!" She disengaged herself, and her long white fingers strayed mechanically to her tumbled hair. The elegant precision of her toilette had given place to a most distracting disarray. She felt her cheeks burning still, and the lace at her bosom was all crushed. "And I was on my way to a dinner party," she whispered, with humorously uplifted eyebrows. "I must drive back home, and--and--" "And what?" he demanded. "And send an excuse," she declared, demurely. "I am not equal to a family dinner party." "And afterwards?" She smiled. "Would you like," she asked, "to take me out to dinner?" "Would I like!" "Go and change, and call for me in half an hour. We can go somewhere where we are not likely to be seen," she said, softly. "I must cover myself up in my cloak. Whatever will Perkins say? Please remember that I have no hat." He held her hands and looked into her eyes. "Don't go for one moment," he pleaded. "I want to realize it. I want to feel sure of you." The gravity of his manner was for a moment reflected in her tone. "I think," she said, "that you may feel sure. There are things which we may have to say to one another--presently--but--" He stooped and kissed her fingers. CHAPTER VI THE CONSCIENCE OF A STATESMAN He was shown into her own little boudoir by a smiling maid-servant, who seemed already to treat him with an especial consideration. The wonder of this thing was still lying like a thrall upon him, and yet he knew that the joy of life was burning once more in his veins. He caught sight of himself in a mirror, and he was amazed. The careworn look had gone from his eyes, the sallowness from his complexion. His step was elastic, he felt the firm, quick beat of his heart, even his pulses seem to throb to a new and a wonderful tune. These moments whilst he waited for her were a joy to him. The atmosphere was fragrant with the perfume of her favourite roses, a book lay upon the little inlaid table face downwards as she had left it. There was a delicately engraved etching upon the wall, which he recognized as her work; the watercolours, all of a French school which he had often praised, were of her choosing. Perfect though the room was in colouring and detail, there was yet a habitable, almost a homely, air about it. Mannering moved about amidst her treasures like a man in a dream, only it was a dream of loneliness gone forever, of a grey life suddenly coloured and transformed. It was wonderful.