"When you speak of your family, do you include yourself?" he suggested. She threw a surprised glance at him. "I thought you understood that I am simply their mouthpiece." At this he rose quietly to his feet with a gesture of acceptance. "I have only to thank you, then, for not keeping me longer in suspense." His air of wishing to put an immediate end to the conversation seemed to surprise her. "Sit down a moment longer," she commanded him kindly; and as he leaned against the back of his chair, without appearing to hear her request, she added in a low voice: "I am very sorry for you and Fanny--but you are not the only persons to be pitied." She had dropped her light manner as she might have tossed aside her fan, and he was startled at the intimacy of misery to which her look and movement abruptly admitted him. Perhaps no Anglo-Saxon fully understands the fluency in self-revelation which centuries of the confessional have given to the Latin races, and to Durham, at any rate, Madame de Treymes' sudden avowal gave the shock of a physical abandonment. "I am so sorry," he stammered--"is there any way in which I can be of use to you?" She sat before him with her hands clasped, her eyes fixed on his in a terrible intensity of appeal. "If you would--if you would! Oh, there is nothing I would not do for you. I have still a great deal of influence with my mother, and what my mother commands we all do. I could help you--I am sure I could help you; but not if my own situation were known. And if nothing can be done it must be known in a few days." Durham had reseated himself at her side. "Tell me what I can do," he said in a low tone, forgetting his own preoccupations in his genuine concern for her distress. She looked up at him through tears. "How dare I? Your race is so cautious, so self-controlled--you have so little indulgence for the extravagances of the heart. And my folly has been incredible--and unrewarded." She paused, and as Durham waited in a silence which she guessed to be compassionate, she brought out below her breath: "I have lent money--my husband's, my brother's--money that was not mine, and now I have nothing to repay it with." Durham gazed at her in genuine astonishment. The turn the conversation had taken led quite beyond his uncomplicated experiences with the other sex. She saw his surprise, and extended her hands in deprecation and entreaty. "Alas, what must you think of me? How can I explain my humiliating myself before a stranger? Only by telling you the whole truth--the fact that I am not alone in this disaster, that I could not confess my situation to my family without ruining myself, and involving in my ruin some one who, however undeservedly, has been as dear to me as--as you are to--" Durham pushed his chair back with a sharp exclamation. "Ah, even that does not move you!" she said.