"I am not David Vavasour Williams. I am Vivien Warren, the daughter of a woman who runs a series of disreputable Private Hotels on the Continent. I had no avowed father, nor had my mother, who likewise was illegitimate. She was probably the daughter of a Lieutenant Warren who was killed in the Crimea, and _her_ mother's name was Vavasour. My grandmother was probably--I can only deal with probabilities and possibilities in this undocumented past--a Welsh woman of Cardiff, and I should not be surprised if I were a sort of cousin of the man I am personating. "He was the ne'er-do-weel, only son of a Welsh vicar, a pupil of Praed's, who went out to South Africa and died or was killed in the war. "You have met my adopted father. He fully believes I am the bad son, the prodigal son, returned and reformed. He has grown to love me so much that it really seems to have put new life into him. I have helped him to get his affairs straight, and I think I may say he has gained by this substitution of one son for another, even though the new son is a daughter! I have taken none of his money, other than small sums he has thrust on me. I have some money of my own, earned in Honoria's firm, for I was the 'Warren' of her 'Fraser and Warren.' She has known my secret all along, hasn't quite approved, but was overborne by me in my resolve to show what a woman--in disguise, it may be--could do at the Bar. "Michael! I started out twelve years ago--and the dreadful thing is I am now _thirty-four_ in true truth! to conquer Man, and a man has conquered me! I wanted to show that woman could compete with man in all careers, and especially in the Law. So she can--have I not shown it by what I have done? But it is a drawn battle. I have realized that if some men are bad--rotten--others, like you--are supremely good. I love you as I never thought I could love any one. I cannot trust myself to write down how much I love you: it would read shamefully and be too much a surrender of my first principle of self-respect.