"It sounds very much like him," said Maud, "but is it true Wallace that you are really going to do a play for Miss Fleming?" "It happily is," said Martin, "a comedy." "Not a problem play?" The light of hope dawned in Miss Carmine's eyes. "Oh, dear me, no," cried Fuschia; "and he's going to write it just as he talks." "I'd very much prefer to have you talk it as I write," said Martin, but she had already vanished. In a very few minutes the others followed her example, Fleming leaving the house with Maud and Wallace. CHAPTER XXV WITH MY HEART'S LOVE Scarcely had the hall door closed behind them when Hepworth turned to Dita inquiringly. "Would you not very much prefer that I left you?" he asked. "I can see that you are not well, and we can discuss anything that remains to be talked over at any other time." "No," she shook her head, "I am quite well. I have not even the headache I claimed, and I must, indeed I must, talk to you to-night." "But if our conversation this morning so upset and unnerved you," he urged, "would it not be wise to defer this?" "Our conversation didn't," she replied with emphasis. "It was another conversation. Cresswell, will you answer me a question or two?" "Anything you wish to know," he replied. She got up, and, after a fashion she sometimes showed, perhaps unconsciously copied from him, began to walk restlessly up and down, occasionally stopping to pick up and examine some ornament quite as if she had never happened to notice it before. She had picked up a small jade vase from the mantelpiece and was now bestowing upon it what appeared to be an exhaustive observation. In reality she was hardly conscious that she held it in her hand. "Cresswell, why did you marry me?" He started ever so slightly and then answered unhesitatingly, "Because I loved you, Dita." A little spasm of some emotion he could not fathom passed over her face. "It was not because you wished to see how the flower blooming in a tin can in a tenement window would bloom in a wonderful lacquered vase in a marble court? It was not from curiosity or pity, Cresswell?" "It was love, Dita." Again that wave of emotion over her face, and then she looked about her with sad, tear-wet eyes and a trembling mouth. "And my caprices, my stupidity, my inadequacy, soon destroyed that?" "Never," he repeated. "Believe that. I was no gardener trying experiments. It was the flower I loved, Dita; the flower whose happiness I longed for, whose happiness I still long for. You do not need my love, do not care for it, why should you? But give me the happiness of still being able to assure for you the marble courts and the lacquered vases." The little jade vase dropped from her fingers and fell unheeded to the rug at her feet. The tears were pouring now, down her white face. She made no effort either to conceal or to staunch them. "Ah, blind and wasteful creature that I am!" she cried. "Why, why should you have chosen to love me?"