Before replying, the actress raised both hands and lifted her veil. The disclosure was something of a revelation. The features were those of Marien Dounay, but they were changed. There had been always something royal in Marien’s glances, but the royal air was gone now: something dominant in her personality, but the dominance had departed. The suggestion, too, of smouldering fire in her eyes was absent; instead there appeared a liquescent, quivering light, in which suffering and the comprehension that comes with suffering combined to suggest helpless appeal rather than the old, imperial air. This softening of expression had extended to her mouth as well. The lips, as red, as full of invitation as ever, were more pliant; they trembled and formed themselves into tiny undulating curves which suggested and then reinforced the imploring light of the eyes. Her beauty was more appealing because it was no longer commanding, but entreating. "Why did you do it?" the minister repeated, when his eyes had completed his appraisal, and the woman was still eloquently silent. "Because I loved you," she answered briefly. Her declaration was accompanied by an attempt at a smile that was so brave and yet so faltering that it was rather pitiful. But Hampstead, looking at the beautiful shell of this woman who had so vindictively hurled him down, was not in a mood to feel pity. Instead he was merely incredulous. "Love?" he asked cynically, rising from his seat. "Yes," exclaimed the woman with convulsive eagerness, as if her voice choked over speaking what her lips, by the traditional modesty of her sex and the mountain of her pride and self-will, had been too long forbidden to utter. "Yes, I have always loved you!" With this much of a beginning, excitedly and with the air of one whose course was predetermined, the actress plucked off her hat, stabbed the pin into it, and tossed it upon the window seat; then nervously stripped the gloves from her hands; all the while hurrying on with a sort of defensive vehemence to aver: "I have loved you from the first moment when you held me in your arms long enough for me to feel the electric warmth of your personality. You roused, kindled, and enflamed me! The sensation was delicious; but I resented it. It offended my pride. I had never been overmastered. You overmastered me without knowing it. I hated you for it. You were so—so unsophisticated; so good, so simple, so ready to worship, to admire, to ascribe the beauties of my body to the beauties of my soul. I hated you for that, for my soul was less beautiful than my body, and I knew it. I resisted you and yielded to you; I hated you and loved you; I spurned you and wanted you.