She returned the look as if surprised at my silence. Then her eyes lighted and her lips parted. “Oh, I remember now, of course. It was you who always put on that mournful look--funereally gloomy--when I used to do things which shocked your English propriety. I was thinking it was that Graf von Holstein--that long-faced German who would insist upon giving me flowers I did not want and then expected me to dance with him in return.” I had given her flowers and asked her to dance when she wore them. “Very unreasonable, mademoiselle,” I said after a pause. “Oh, men are always like that. They all seem to think that because a girl amuses herself and dances once or twice with them, they have made a conquest.” “A man is of course unreasonable to believe in a woman.” “What a delightfully cynical platitude. Isn’t the sea getting up quickly? Poor mother! I am afraid you won’t tempt her on the yacht again.” Again she laughed, and added: “And that’s a nuisance, for I love the sea.” I turned unexpectedly and caught a look in her eyes as they were bent on me, which she had not meant me to see. And then I thought I understood. “I thought that was it,” I said quietly. I myself could smile now. “What was what, Mr. Donnington?” she asked as a sort of challenge; adding, with an attempt to resume her former expression of reckless frivolity: “that sounds like a conundrum, doesn’t it? And they are such stupid things.” “I believe I have the answer to the bigger conundrum.” “There’s the grave Englishman again,” she jested, with a toss of the head. “Yes. ‘Miralda’s Englishman,’” I answered, holding her eyes with mine and speaking slowly and deliberately. It was great daring, but I felt that I must strip away this mask of heartless raillery which galled and pained me beyond endurance. I would know the truth at any cost. If this coquette of flouts and jibes who laughed at men with one breath and made light of even her mother’s sufferings with the next, was the real woman whom I had set in the inmost shrine of my heart, the sooner I was away the better. The mask fell, but not at once. She met my gaze steadily, almost defiantly, and the blood rushed to her face as she read my look and strove to force a laugh and utter a jest in reply. But the words would not come. “You understand me,” I said, in the same deliberate tone. “You are either the most heartless jilt who ever trifled with the best feelings of men in order to be able to boast of your triumphs afterwards, or you are deliberately playing the part for some purpose of your own. God forbid that I should accept your self-accusation.” “I will go----” she began and half rose. But the reaction came then. The crimson faded from her face, leaving it white and strained. She hid it behind her hands as she sank back in the chair, her head lowered, trembling in agitation. I was answered and without a word I rose and left her that she might be alone while she recovered her self-command.