“But I could never think of asking any one to subscribe to the dinners.” “But I am such a stranger. And your charity appeals to me. Yet I would not for the world set up in opposition.” And they both laughed. Yet it pleased the High Priest that she should wish to join him in something--and at her own request. “Then we have shelter homes for women----” But here Marigold got up and stopped him by going across and laying her hand upon his chair. “I don’t want to hear any more,” she said. “Charities only interest me in the morning. Do you not find it very lonely in your big Palace--all alone?” Her voice acted on him like a spell, as it always had done. “At times, yes, it is very lonely.” “So it is here.” “But you are young. You can have the companionship that pleases you.” “Indeed, no. I was brought up with a very exalted idea of my own position--very quiet and exclusive. And it is hard to break through a life-training. Only now and then I feel as if I really want to run away.” “A natural feeling in youth.” “Then you are young, because sometimes you want to run away too.” He sat, at a loss for words, because, after all, it needs practice to talk to a woman lightly and retain one’s common-sense. Especially when you’ve gone a whole lifetime asking to be delivered from them in order to satisfy a capital ambition. “I feel very sorry for you,” she continued, half-laughing. “I should like you to feel sorry for me.” Again he had no words, but Marigold knew that she was not distasteful to him. “I should love to see through the Temple,” she continued. “I feel happy there--far more at home than here.” “I will take you myself, whenever you care to go,” he answered, getting up eagerly. “Fix a day. To-morrow or any day I am quite at your service.” And Marigold looked up at him and blushed, just sufficient for beauty and nothing more. “I should like to go now--this afternoon.” And the imperious tone, the imperious action, coming, as it did, like an unexpected lightning flash after sweetness and gentleness and childish loveliness, completed from that moment his moral downfall. Never having been a lover, he became a slave, and, like most men who in theory admire the gentle, placid woman, it was in practice the domineering woman who had conquered him. A domineering woman, with a voice like music, and the manner of an empress, and the waywardness of a child. So she drove back with him in the big, lumbersome High Priest’s carriage; and her face and station and the simple mourning robe were sufficient guarantee of decorum, even had his character not been. The Temple was silent and grand as ever, and it impressed Marigold as it had never failed to do, for it brought back some heavy remembrance to her that she mistook for admiration of its exquisite beauty.