'You would make it an open engagement--go about with her--have it publicly known?' 'Of course. The whole point is publicity. I must be known to be engaged to an heiress.' 'And it would last----' 'As long as might prove necessary. One could find an excuse at any time for breaking it off.' 'Or I could.' 'Just so. It really amounts to nothing at all.' 'To nothing at all!' Zoe neither raised her voice nor her eyes. 'Here is a man who proposes to pretend love and to win a girl's affections, when he can never marry her. He also proposes to throw her over, as soon as she has served his purpose. It is nothing at all, of course! Alec, you are really a wonderful man!' 'Nonsense! The thing is done every day.' 'No--not every day. If you are the cleverest man in London, you are also the most heartless.' 'You know that you can say what you please,' he replied, without any outward sign of annoyance. 'Even heroics.' 'But,' she said, nursing her knee and swinging backwards and forwards, 'we have forgotten one thing--the most important thing of all, in fact. My poor boy, there is no more chance of your being engaged to Armorel than of your entering into the Kingdom of Heaven.' 'Why?' 'Other girls you might catch: you are tall and big and handsome; and you have the reputation of being so very, very clever. Most girls would be carried away. But not Armorel. She is not subdued by bigness in men, and she doesn't especially care for a clever man. She is actually so old-fashioned--think of it!--that she wants--character.' 'Well! What objection would that raise, I should like to know?' Zoe laughed softly and sweetly. 'Don't you see, dear Alec? Oh! But you must let Armorel explain to you.' CHAPTER XV NOT TWO MEN, BUT ONE Great is the power of coincidence. Things have got a habit of happening just when they are most likely to be useful. It is not on the stage alone that the long-lost uncle turns up, or the long-missing will is found in the cupboard. And you cannot invent for fiction anything half so strange as the daily coincidence of common life. A tolerably long experience of the common life has convinced me of this great truth. Therefore, the coincidence which happened to Armorel on the very day when the young dramatist unfolded his griefs will not, by wise men, be thought at all strange. It was in the evening. She was sitting with her companion, thinking over Archie and his play. Was it really good? Was it good enough to hold the stage, and to command the attention of the audience? To her it seemed a singularly beautiful, poetical, and romantic piece. But Armorel was of a lowly and humble mind. She knew that she had no experience in things dramatic. Had it been a picture, now---- 'Oh!' cried her companion, suddenly starting upright in the cushioned chair where she was lying apparently asleep, 'I had almost forgotten. My dear, I have got a present for you.' 'From yourself, Zoe?'