"Well, you certainly did very well at tea," she remarked. "If you really are going to wait, make yourself as comfortable as you can. There are cigarettes and magazines in the corner there." Anna disappeared, but Ennison did not trouble either the cigarettes or the magazines. He sat back in an easy chair with a hand upon each of the elbows, and looked steadfastly into the fire. People spoke of him everywhere as a young man of great promise, a politician by instinct, a keen and careful judge of character. Yet he was in a state of hopeless bewilderment. He was absolutely unable to focus his ideas. The girl who had just left the room was as great a mystery to him now as on the afternoon when he had met her in Piccadilly and taken her to tea. And behind--there was Paris, memories of amazing things, memories which made his cheeks burn and his heart beat quickly as he sat there waiting for her. For the first time a definite doubt possessed him. A woman cannot change her soul. Then it was the woman herself who was changed. Anna was not "Alcide" of the "Ambassador's," whose subtly demure smile and piquant glances had called him to her side from the moment of their first meeting. It was impossible. She came in while he was still in the throes, conviction battling with common-sense, his own apprehension. He rose at once to his feet and turned a white face upon her. "I am going to break a covenant," he cried. "I cannot keep silence any longer." "You are going to speak to me of things which happened before we met in London?" she asked quietly. "Yes! I must! The thing is becoming a torture to me. I must!" She threw open the door and pointed to it. "My word holds," she said. "If you speak--farewell." He stood quite silent for a moment, his eyes fixed upon her face. Something he saw there had a curious effect upon him. He was suddenly calm. "I shall not speak," he said, "now or at any other time. Come!" They went out together and he called a hansom. From the opposite corner under the trees a man with his hat slouched over his eyes stood and glowered at them. _Chapter XX_ ANNA'S SURRENDER "This is indeed a gala night," said Ennison, raising his glass, and watching for a moment the golden bubbles. "Was it really only this afternoon that I met you in St. James' Park?" Anna nodded, and made a careful selection from a dish of quails. "It was just an hour before teatime," she remarked. "I have had nothing since, and it seems a very long time." "An appetite like yours," he said resignedly, "is fatal to all sentiment." "Not in the least," she assured him. "I find the two inseparable." He sighed. "I have noticed," he said, "that you seem to delight in taking a topsy-turvy view of life. It arises, I think, from an over developed sense of humour. You would find things to laugh at even in Artemus Ward."