"The general was in Mexico some years ago," Mrs. Lyeth added, inconsequently. "I have heard him speak of the beauty of the women. But in New York they are more beautiful still, are they not?" "Yes, they are pretty enough," Tancred answered. "I hear they propose to the men," Liance interjected. "Ah, that is a libel. In leap-year, perhaps, and in jest, such a thing may occur, but--" "They are well behaved, then?" "Yes, indeed. I remember, though, one girl--her name was--there, I have forgotten it. However, a young fellow was evidently taken with her, and she, as evidently, was taken with him. But for some reason or other he never seemed to get to the point. One afternoon, when he was drinking tea with her, the heat of the room--our houses, you know, are fearfully hot--must have affected her. She went off like that! The young fellow was at his wits' end. It may be that he had never seen anyone faint before. 'What shall I do? what shall I do?' he exclaimed, and he was about to scream for assistance, when the girl in her swoon murmured: 'Kiss me.' He did so and she recovered at once. H'm--they were married last spring." During the telling of this anecdote Tancred noticed that the girl's eyes were still on his. But as the ultimate phrase dropped from him she rose and left the room. "She is exquisite," Tancred confided in a whisper to Mrs. Lyeth. To this that lady assented. "But you--" he added, and then stopped short. "Let us go to the pavilion, it is cooler there." Mrs. Lyeth had risen, and Tancred, hesitant still, followed as she led the way. "But you," he added at last, "you are perfect." She had found a seat and he another. A fan which she held she unfurled and shut again with a sudden click. For a moment she toyed with a fold of her frock, but presently her hand fell to her side. He caught it up and kissed the finger-tips. At once she drew it from him. "It is the climate that has affected you," she said, "not I." "It is you," he muttered, "it is you." "Even so, there let it rest." "I cannot," he insisted; "I love you." As he spoke he started, startled at his own temerity. And as her eyelids drooped he tried to catch her hand again. "Then, if you love me, say nothing." She had straightened herself and looked him now in the face. "If the general should even imagine--" A gesture completed the sentence. Tancred nodded. He seemed confident and assured. Evidently the general had aroused no fear in him. "It was in Mexico," she continued. "Liance was in the cradle. Her mother"--and Mrs. Lyeth turned her head and looked cautiously around--"her mother was younger than I am now. She was beautiful, I have understood; more so even than her daughter. The general suspected that she was flirting with the Austrian attache. He had him out and shot him. His wife he drove to suicide. It is only recently I learned this. And yet it is not for that reason that I fear. I have no intention of flirting with you; you know that. It is because--because--"