"That first evening we met I knew I had turned your head, and I could see at once you were inexperienced with women as surely as if the fact had been branded upon you. I had heard somebody point you out and say you were worth fifteen thousand pounds a year, and, as afterwards you yourself told me you were rich, any doubt I might have had on the point was removed. My own poverty had just been painfully brought home to me, for I had been forced to leave Paris for want of money at the very moment my ambition began to look reasonable. I was feeling particularly bitter about it as there was no certainty at all of my being able to come back here. Poppa's savings had all gone in starting me with a good stock of dresses and keeping me here two years. He had hoped to be able to do more for me, but he could only send me my passage-money. Fifteen or even ten thousand pounds a year is a great temptation to a poor girl. Chance had never yet thrown in my way a really rich suitor, and there was I, at the moment of meeting him, almost on the eve of departure, with very little money in my pocket and indebted to the kindness of a lady for her invitation to stay the month in London. She had taken my room for me as she could not accommodate me at her own house. You see how poor I was! I set myself puzzling in the coolest possible way as to how I could get you. Instinct as well as the ease with which I had bewitched you told me there were romantic possibilities in you, of which you had scarcely any suspicion and which might easily be played upon. And a plan formed at once in my mind in the ultimate success of which I had the fullest confidence. To put the idea into your head that we meet again here in a year's time was to appeal to your romantic side. That is why I mentioned the Beaux Arts to you--your love for architecture made my game easy. I was now determined that nothing should stand in the way of my returning to Paris, that poppa somehow must raise the necessary money--even if he ran into debt. Happily he was able to send me back and to see his way clear to keep me going as long as I chose to stay." Miss Brooke paused a moment and poured out Paul's coffee, which, however, he let stand untouched.