"You know perfectly well you're one of the most beautiful women in the world," he began gravely; but she caught him up. "One of--?" "To me, of course--you know the rest: the usual thing," he said. "But you didn't come here to discuss your charms--now did you?" She shook her head slightly, smiling with light-hearted malice. "By no means. But, at the same time, if I've a whim to be complimented, I do think you might be gallant enough to humour me." But he was in anything but a gallant temper. Mystery hedged his thoughts about and possessed them; he couldn't rid his imagination of the inexplicable circumstances of the man who had broken into his rooms to steal nothing, and the knot of velvet ribbon that had dropped from nowhere to his study floor. And when he forced his thoughts back to Alison, it was only to feel again the smart of some of the stinging things she had chosen to say to him that night during their discussion of his play, and to be conscious of a certain amount of irritation because of the effrontery of her present pose, assuming as it did that he would eventually bend to her will, endure all manner of insolence and indignity, because he hoped she would marry him. Something of what was passing through his mind as he stood mute before her, she read in his look--or intuitively divined. "Heavens!" she cried, "you're as temperamental as a leading-man. Can't you accept a word or two of criticism of your precious play without sulking like--like Max does when I make up my mind to take a week's rest in the middle of the season?" "Criticise as much as you like," he said; "and I'll listen and take it to heart. But I don't mind telling you I'm not going to twist this play out of all dramatic semblance at your dictation--or Max's either." For a moment their glances crossed like swords; he was conscious from the flicker in her eyes that her temper was straining at the leash; and his jaw assumed a certain look of grim solidity. But the outbreak he expected did not come; Alison was an artiste too consummate not to be able to control and mask her emotions--even as she did now with a quick curtaining of her eyes behind long lashes. "Don't let's talk about that now," she said in a soft, placating voice. "That's a matter for hours of business. We're getting farther and farther away from my errand." "By all means," he returned pleasantly, "let us go to that at once." "You can't guess?" She unmasked again the battery of her laughing eyes. He shook his head. "I'll give you three guesses." He found the courage to say: "You didn't come to confess that I'm in the right about the play?" She pouted prettily. "Can't you let that be? No, of course not." "Nor to bicker about it?" She laughed a denial. "Nor yet to conduct a guessing contest?" "No." "Then I've exhausted my allowance.... Well?" "I came," she drawled, "for my hat." "Your hat?" His eyes opened wide.