“What your heart is set on just now is that I should visit your mother,” she said quickly. She had no notion of leading him to fancy that she had spoken to him of what was in her heart in order to induce him to speak to her of what he fancied was in his heart. If he had confessed to her there and then that his heart was set on marrying her she would have refused to listen to him further, and all might be over between them. But she had no idea of allowing this to come about. She cared far too much for him for this. She had read the instructive Bible story--the finest story that was ever written in the world--of a man being handed over by God for Satan to try to make what he pleased of him. She thought that God might be very much better employed in handing over a man to a woman to try what she could make of him. She wondered which of the witty Frenchmen would have replied that God, being merciful, would only make the transfer to Satan. Anyhow, leaving theology aside for the moment, the longing in her heart was that she might be given an opportunity of standing by this man while he worked out his own salvation, and she knew that the salvation of a man is the recognition by himself of his own manhood. That was why she stopped him so quickly when he was going to say something that would have spoilt his chance--and hers. “Your heart is set on my visit to your mother--at least I hope so, for mine is,” she cried quickly, with a nod to him. “Now tell me how and when I am to come.” For a moment he felt angry that she had checked his all too rapid flow of words; he was not quite sure that the trend of their conversation, and that accidental introduction of a word or two that gives a man his opportunity, if only he is on the look out for it, would ever be so favourable to him again. But he quickly perceived that he had been too impetuous, and that if he had been allowed to go on he would have ruined every chance that he had. “May I say Saturday?” he asked. “This business”--they were close to the tennis courts, and had just arisen from lunch--“will be over by Saturday.” “And you’ll have carried home the cup--don’t forget that,” she said. “Yes, Saturday would suit me very well, and I hope it will suit your mother.” “You may be sure that it will,” he said. “I have a very good chance of the cup, haven’t I? There are only two lives between me and it. If Donovan is killed by a thunderbolt to-night and if a brigand stabs Jeffares with a poisoned stiletto in the course of the evening, to-morrow I’ll carry off the cup. It will be plain sailing after that.” “No, you must win it,” she said. “Wish me good luck, and--I suppose you don’t happen to have about you that ring which you habitually wear--the one with the monogram of Lucrezia Borgia done on it in fine rubies, and the secret spring that releases the hollow needle-point with the deadly fluid? No? Ah, just my luck! you could put it on and then offer your hand to Donovan.”