"A secret for a secret," she said. "When you first came to Hampstead, I thought that you liked me a little Alban. Now, I know that you do not. Suppose there were a reason why I let Willy Forrest say that he was engaged to me. Suppose some one else had been unkind when I wished him to be very kind to me. Would you understand then?" This was in the best spirit of the coquette and yet a great earnestness lay behind it. Posing in that romantic light, the thick red lips pouting, the black eyes shining as with the clear flame of a soul awakened, the head erect as that of a deer which has heard a sound afar, this passionate little actress, half Pole, half Jewess, might well have set a man's heart beating and brought him, suppliant, to her feet. To Alban there returned for a brief instant all that spirit of homage and of awe with which he had first beheld her on the balcony of the house in St. James' Square. The cynic in him laid down his robe and stood before her in the garb of youth spellbound and fascinated. He dared to say to himself, she loves me--it is to me that these words are spoken. "I cannot understand you, Anna," he exclaimed, tortured by some plague of a sudden memory, held back from a swift embrace he knew not by what instinct. "You say that you only let Willy Forrest call himself engaged to you. Don't you love him then--is it all false that you have told him?" "It is quite false, Alban--I do not love him as you would understand the meaning of the word. If he says that I am engaged to him, is it true because he says it? There are some men who marry women simply because they are persevering. Willy Forrest would be one of them if I were weak enough. But I do not love him--I shall never love him, Alban." She bent low and almost whispered the words in his ear. Her hand covered his fingers caressingly. His forehead touched the lace upon her robe and he could hear her heart beating. An impulse almost irresistible came upon him to take her in his arms and hold her there, and find in her embrace that knowledge of the perfect womanhood which had been his dream through the years. He knew not what held him back. Anna watched him with a hope that was almost as an intoxication of doubt and curiosity. She loved him in that moment with all a young girl's ardor. She believed that the whole happiness of her life lay in the words he was about to speak. CHAPTER XVI THE INTRUDER A man's voice, calling to them from the lawn, sent them instantly apart as though caught in some guilty confidence. Anna knew that something unwonted had happened and that Willy Forrest had returned. "What has brought him back?" she exclaimed a little wildly; and then, "Don't go away, Alban, I shall want you. My father would never forgive me if he heard of it. Of course he cannot stop here."