"I asked, what will you do?" repeated Cathewe for her ear only. "What do you mean?" "Did you know that he was here?" "I should not have been seated at this table had I known." "Some day you are going to tell me all about it," he asserted; "and you are going to smile when you answer me." "Thank you. I forgot. My dear friend, I am never going to tell you all about it. Why did you not come first?" her voice vibrating. "You still love him." "That is not kind," striving hard to keep the smile on her trembling lips. "Oh, I beg of you, do not make this friendship impossible. Do not rob me of the one man I trust." Cathewe motioned aside the fish and reached for his sauterne. "I have loved you faithfully and loyally for seven years. I have tried to win you by all those roads a man may honorably traverse in quest of the one woman. For seven years; and for something like three I have stayed away at your command. Will you believe it? Sometimes my hands ache for his throat . . . Smile, they are looking." It was a crooked smile. "Why did I ever tell you?" "Why did you ever tell me . . . only part? It is the other part I wish to know. Till I learn what that is I shall never leave you. You will find that there is a difference between love and infatuation." "As I have never known infatuation I can not tell the difference. Now, no more, unless you care to see me break down before them. For if you tell me that you have loved me seven years, I have loved him eight," cruelly, for Cathewe was pressing her cruelly. "Devil take him! What do you find in the man?" "What do you find in me?" her eyes filled with anger. "Forgive me, Hildegarde; I am blind and mad to-night. I did not expect to find him here either." Breitmann had tried ineffectually to read their lips. She had given her word, and once given, he knew of old that she never broke it; but he was keenly alive that in some way he was the topic of the inaudible conversation. As he sat here to-night he knew why he had never loved Hildegarde, why in fact, he had never loved any woman. The one great passion which comes in the span of life was centered in the girl beside him, dividing her moments between him and Fitzgerald. Strange, but he had not known it till he saw the two women together. For once his nice calculations had ceased to run smoothly; there appeared now a knot in the thread for which he saw no untying. "You do not sing now?" asked Laura across the table. "No," Hildegarde answered, "my voice is gone." "Oh, I am so sorry." "It does not matter. I can hum a little to myself; there is yet some pleasure in that. But in opera, no, never again. Has not Mrs. Coldfield told you? No? Imagine! One night in Dresden, in the middle of the aria, my voice broke miserably and I could not go on." "And her heart nearly broke with it," interposed Mrs. Coldfield, with the best intentions, nearer the truth than she knew. "I am sorry, Laura, that I never told you before."