She swept him a swift, gracious little curtsey. "_Dieu mercie, Monsieur!_" she laughed, "the temptation would be too great, I suppose? But I will tell you, if you like, why you have not forgotten. Because I have kept myself _en evidence_; that is why. You say that I see clearly, my friend. It is true. I see so clearly that the glamour goes even from my own actions. You are the captive of my bow and spear, Paul, but you would have escaped if you could. And Alice Woodward cannot spin webs as I do; she will never be able to keep you, and then----? Good-night." She held out her hand suddenly, but Paul stood irresolute. "You are clear sighted, indeed. God knows you read me like a book sometimes." He hesitated, then went on hurriedly, "I wonder if--if Miss Carmichael----" Violet Vane shook her head with a smile. "That is the kind of knowledge a man can generally find out for himself, my friend! Personally, I think she will marry Tom Kennedy if she is left alone." "Thank you. You certainly have courage, Violet." "The courage of a surgeon who sees the knife is kindest in the end. I have told you that you would be miserable with the woman you do not love. I now tell you that you would not be happy with the woman you do love." "And why?" "Because you have not the making of an archangel in you; that is why. Do you think you have, Paul?" She stood for a moment at the door to look up at him, as if she were making quite an ordinary remark. "But there is the earth in the middle between the heavens above and the waters beneath. Don't forget that, _my friend_." When she had left him he lit another cigar out of sheer inability to think of doing anything more decided, anything which in any way affected his future, even to the extent of taking a night's repose; that feeling of uncertainty being largely a result of sheer surprise that he should have allowed Violet Vane's man[oe]uvring to pass unreproved. And this, in its turn, convinced him, as nothing else would have done, that she understood him as no one else could do. And she? When he, coming up to his room, turned out the lamp on the stair, he left the house in darkness, save for the candle he carried. Yet Mrs. Vane was not even undressed. She was face down on her bed trying to forget everything; above all, that old Peggy Duncan possessed a secret which might--which might---- For her own reference to the past had brought that other past back upon her, and, as she buried her hot face in the pillow, she told herself that she had not, after all, spoken the truth. She had said that his happiness was her motive, when it was her own. And wherefore not? CHAPTER XVIII.