He surveys her calculatingly: he is a very keen man of the world, and he has recovered sufficiently from the peculiarity of the situation to speculate upon it with true British acumen. Shall he, or shall he not, put a certain question to her, or leave the matter at rest for ever? Being a person well used to gratifying himself, he asks his question: "Supposing that it had not been true, what would you have had to say to me then?" And, strange to say, his face flushes as he finishes--not hers. "Nothing." The word comes coldly forth without a fellow. He knows then that she has only looked at Love, and that the thoughtless harmony of his life is done for him. "May I see you sometimes?" he cries as she makes a step onward. "When you will," she replies, going farther along the narrow passage, and then looking back at him clearly. "I have found you: I am very content. And if you thought I loved you--Well, Love, you know, was a blind god, and so must ever be content to look at happiness through another's eyes." He went away, and he said to himself, "She does not know what love means." Night after night found him at the theatre, and night after night saw him seek at least a few moments' talk with her; and always he came away thinking her a colder woman than any of the statues she was so fond of speaking about. In her conversation there was no personality; and although her intellect pleased him, the lack of anything else annoyed him in equal proportion. And yet he loved the woman whom he was going to marry. She was a sweet woman--"God never made a sweeter," he told himself a hundred times a day. He had wooed her and won her, and wished to make her his wife. She _was_ a sweet woman. For weeks now she had heard harsh rumors and evil things of him that made her heart ache, but she had given no sign, nor would she have ever done so had not her friends goaded her to the point. She hears the light footstep coming along the corridor toward her, and she knows that it comes this morning at her especial call. She sees the bonny face and feels the light kiss on her cheek. Heaven forgive her if she inwardly wonder if these lips she loves have last rested on another woman's face! "Roy," she says, stealing up to him and laying one of her lovely round arms about his neck, "tell me, dear, if you have ceased to love me--if you would rather--rather break our engagement? Because, dear, better a parting now, before it is too late, than a lifelong misery afterward." There are tears in the blue bewitching eyes, and tears in the gentle voice that he is not slow to feel. "Florence"--the young man catches her in his arms--"who has--What do you mean? I have not ceased to love you." All the fair fascination that has made her so dear to him in the past rushes over him now to her rescue. "Then, Roy, why, why--Oh, I cannot say it!" Her pretty head, gold like his own, falls on his shoulder.