Her eyes met mine, and I saw in their dark depths a deep and trusting love. Yet I was socially her superior, and had foolishly imagined that we could always remain friends without becoming lovers. When I reflected how years ago I used to chat with her in her father's shop, in the days when she was a hoydenish schoolgirl, and compared her then with what she was now, I saw her as a graceful, modest, and extremely beautiful woman, who possessed the refinement of speech and grace of carriage which many women in higher standings in life would have envied, and whom I knew was honest and upright, although practically alone and unprotected in that great world of London. "You must forgive me," I said. "I ought to have seen you before I went away, but I left hurriedly with my sister and her husband. You know what a restless pair they are." "Of course," she answered. "But you've been back in England several weeks. Mary Daffern wrote to me and said she had seen you driving in Stamford nearly three weeks ago." "Yes," I replied. "I was sick of the eternal rounds of Nice and Monte Carlo, so travelled straight to Tixover without breaking my journey in town. But surely," I added, "it doesn't matter much if I don't see you for a month or two. It never has mattered." Her eyes were fixed upon the ground, and I thought her lips trembled. "Of course it does," she responded. "I like to know how and where you are. We are friends--indeed, you are the oldest friend I have in London." "But you have your other admirers," I said. "Men who take you about, entertain you, flatter you, and all that sort of thing." "Yes, yes," she answered hurriedly. "But you know I hate them all. I merely accept their invitations because it takes me out of the dreary groove in which my work lies. It's impossible for a woman to go about alone, and the attentions of men amuse me rather than gratify my natural woman's vanity." She spoke sensibly, as few of her age would speak. Her parents had been honest, upright, God-fearing folk, and she had been taught to view life philosophically. "But you have loved," I suggested. "You can't really tell me with truth that of all these men who have escorted you about of an evening and on Sundays there is not one for whom you have developed some feeling of affection." She blushed and glanced up at me shyly. "It really isn't fair to ask me that," she protested, flicking at the last year's leaves with the point of her umbrella. "A woman must have a heart like stone if she never experiences any feeling of love. If I replied in the negative I should only lie to you. That you know quite well." "Then you have a lover, eh?" I exclaimed quickly, perhaps in a tone of ill-concealed regret. "No," she responded, in a low, firm voice, "I have no lover." Then after a few moments' pause she inquired, "Why do you ask me that?" "Because, Muriel," I said seriously, taking her hand, "because I desire to know the truth."