"I--I must make you a promise," she retorted, in what would have been, if louder, a peevish wail, "just as though I had really intended some--some gross, revengeful act! You--you are ungentlemanly to impose such a condition! You--you are out of your senses! That creature has bewitched you!" He saw her eye, tearful though it was, quail before his own narrowed and penetrating look. He felt his suspicion strengthen within him. "I do impose the condition," he said, perhaps more determinedly than he had yet spoken. "I do exact the promise. Now decide, Cornelia. There is no hard threat on my part, remember. You don't like the idea of an open rupture with me, you don't think it would be respectable; it would make a little mark on your ermine--a _défaut de la cuirasse_, so to speak. But your beloved world would possibly side with you and against me; you would not lose a supporter; you would still remain quite the grand personage you are. Only, I should never darken your doors again; that is all. Come, now, be good enough to decide." She sank into her seat once more; her eyes had drooped themselves; the tears were standing on her pale cheeks. "I did not know you had it in you to be so cruel," she said, uttering the words with apparent difficulty. "I am afraid I always knew that you had it in you," he returned. "Come, if you please.... Your answer." "You--you mean my promise?" "Yes. Your faithful and solemn promise. We need not go over its substance again. If you break it after giving it I shall not reproach you; I shall simply act. You understand how; I have told you." She was silent for some time. She had got her handkerchief so twisted between her fingers that they threatened to tear its frail fabric. Without raising her eyes, and in a voice that was very sombre but had lost all trace of tremor, she at length murmured:-- "Well, I promise faithfully. I will do nothing--say nothing. My conduct shall be absolutely neutral--null. Are you satisfied?" "Entirely," he said. He at once left her. He reached the opera just as it was ending. Claire, in the company of two ladies and two gentlemen, and attended by Goldwin, was leaving her box when he contrived to find her. Hollister had purchased one of the larger proscenium boxes some time ago; he had given a great price for it to an owner who could not resist the princely terms offered. "You are very late," Claire said, giving him her hand, while Goldwin, standing behind her, dropped a great fur-lined cloak over her shoulders, and hid the regal costliness of her dress, with its laces, flowers, and jewels. "Have you been dining with your sister all this time, or were you here for the last act, but talking with older friends elsewhere?"