“She told me nothing of that.” There was a curious eagerness in her voice. “She told me nothing. Oh, how could she tell me anything? She knew nothing of it herself. She looked on you as an ordinary visitor. She told you that I fled to her. Oh, Bertie, Bertie! those hours that I passed--the terrible conflict. But when I felt her arms about me I knew that I was safe. Then Stephen entered. I thought that we were lost--you and I; that he had returned to find you waiting. I don’t know if he had a suspicion. At any rate we were saved, and by her--dear Phyllis. Oh, will she ever know, I wonder, what it is to be a woman? Bertie, she is my dearest friend--I told you so. I thought of her and you--long ago. Oh, why should you not think of her now that you have awakened and are capable of thought--the thought of a sane man?” He sat with an elbow resting on the front of the opera box, his head upon his hand. He was not looking at her, but beyond her. He seemed to be lost in thought. Was he considering that curious doctrine which she had propounded, that if a man really loves a woman he will marry her dearest friend? He made no reply to her. The point required a good deal of thought, apparently. “You hear me, Bertie--dear Bertie?” she said. He only nodded. She remembered that, upon a previous occasion, when she had made the same suggestion to him, he had put it aside as unworthy of comment--unworthy of a moment’s thought. How could it be possible for him, loving her as he did, to admit the possibility of another’s attractiveness in his eyes? The idea had seemed ludicrous to him. But now he made no such protest. He seemed to consider her suggestion and to think it--well, worthy of consideration; and this should have been very pleasing to her; for did it not mean that she had gained her point? “You will think over it, Bertie?” she said. Her voice was now scarcely so full of eagerness as it had been before. Was that because she did not want to weary him by her persistence? Even the suggestion to a man that he should love a certain woman should, she knew, be made with tact. “I have been thinking over it,” he said at last; but only after a long pause. “Oh, I am so glad!” And she actually believed that she was glad. “I thought about her aboard the yacht.” “Did you? I fancied that you would think of----But I am so glad!” “I thought of her as my good angel. Those words which she said to me--” “She has been your good angel, and I--” “Ella, Ella, she has been our good angel--you said so.” “And don’t you think that I meant it? Some women--she is one of them--are born to lead men upward; others----Ah, there, it is on the stage: _Carmen_, the enchantress, _Michaela_, the good angel. But I am so glad! She is coming to stay with us up the river; you must be with us too. You cannot possibly know her yet. But a week by her side--you will, I know, come to perceive what she is--the sweetest--the most perfect!”