"Lady James, be plain with me." "I am trying to be. You think that I love Demetrius, and that he is devoted to me. It is not so." Katinka winced. She did not like such plain speaking, and, moreover, doubted its truth. "If I could think so, I would----" "Of course you can think so," said Lady Jim, amiably. "Demetrius is particularly clever in curing consumptive diseases. For that reason I conversed with him a great deal. My husband is very ill, and I wanted the doctor to cure him. If Demetrius thought that my liking for his society meant anything else, he is an egotist. My advice is, that you should procure his pardon and marry him." "There are obstacles in the way." "I am not one, I assure you." "Are you speaking honestly?" "I am!" and the eyes of the two women met. Katinka searched the hard blue orbs of the great lady with painful intensity, and Leah bore the scrutiny with the knowledge that her conduct had been, and always would be, perfectly correct. Had she been the least in love with the doctor, she would not have dared to submit to that probing, painful gaze. Women may deceive mere men; they cannot deceive one another, especially in affairs of the heart. When Katinka withdrew her eyes she was satisfied that Lady Jim cared nothing for Demetrius. Without explanation, she burst into rapid and wrathful speech, and Leah's feminine perspicacity enabled her to guess the unuttered preamble, which a man would have required to be put into words. "Why then do you lure him to your feet?" cried the Russian girl, in a sharp, pained voice. "If you love him not, why torture him, and me? I know he loves you--I know--I know--oh yes, I know." "You do not. His love for me--if it can be called so--is the mere passing fancy of a man for a woman who has been kind to him." "Too kind," muttered Katinka, vengefully. "Not at all. But men are so conceited that they think a woman's smile means a woman's love. You have a golden heart, yet you throw it into the greedy hands of this selfish egotist----" "He is not that," gasped the girl. "Yes, he is, and much worse. Demetrius possesses the selfishness of a woman and the vanity of a man." "You reverse the proper order." "No, I don't. Men are far vainer than women, and women more selfish than men. I'm selfish myself, therefore I am happy. You are one of those self-tormenting, self-denying angels, who make men what they are--vain, greedy, conceited, lord-of-creation beasts. And I insult the beasts by such a comparison." "I thought you liked men." "I use them, and I detest them," retorted Lady Jim, speaking more plainly than was her custom. "There are good men--I don't deny that, for I know one at least"--she was thinking of Lionel; "but the majority--ugh! God help the women like yourself, who give their hearts into the keeping of such animals!" "You love your husband, surely."