"A plot, yes!" He glanced sidewise at the clock, and drew self-reliance from the very situation, which began to intoxicate him. "_My_ plot, to attract you hither, by that message, that I might console myself for my fate by the joy of seeing you!" "The joy of seeing me!" She spoke with incredulity and contempt. A glad boldness had come over Peyton. He felt himself masterful, as one feels who is drunk with wine; yet, unlike such a one, he had command of mind and body. "Ay, joy," said he, "joy none the less that you are disdainful! Pride is the attribute of queens, and tenderness is not the only mood in which a woman may conquer. Heaven! You can so discomfit a man with your frowns, _what_ might you do with your smile!" He felt now that he could dissimulate to fool the very devil. But Elizabeth, though interested as one may be in an oddity, seemed not otherwise impressed. 'Twas something, however, that she remained in the room to answer: "I do not know what I have done with my frown, nor what I might do with my smile, but, whatever it be, _you_ are not like to see!" "That I know," said Peyton, and added, at a reckless venture, "and am consoled, when I consider that no other man has seen!" "How do you know that?" "Your smile is not for any common man, and I'll wager your heart is as whole as your beauty." She looked at him for a moment of silence, then: "I cannot imagine why you say all this," quoth she, in real puzzlement. "'Tis an easing to the tortured heart to reveal itself," he answered, "as one would fain uncover an inner wound, though there be no hope of cure. I can go the calmer to my doom for having at least given outlet in words to the flame kindled in a moment within me. My doom! Yes, and none so unwelcome, either, if by it I escape a lifetime of vain longing!" "Your talk is incomprehensible, sir. If you are serious, it must be that your head is turned." "My head is turned, doubtless, but by you!" He was now assuming the low, quick, nervous utterance that is often associated with intense repressed feeling; and his words were accompanied by his best possible counterfeit of the burning, piercing, distraught gaze of passion. Though he acted a part, it was not with the cold-blooded art of a mimic who simulates by rule; it was with the animation due to imagining himself actually swayed by the feeling he would feign. While he _knew_ his emotion to be fictitious, he _felt_ it as if it were real, and his consequent actions were the same as if real it were. "I'm sure the act was not intentional with me," said Elizabeth. "I'd best leave you, lest you grow worse." And she moved towards the door. Peyton had rapid work of it, pushing the chair before him and hopping after it, so as to intercept her. In the excitement of the moment, he lost his mastery of himself. "But you must not go! Hear me, I beg! Good God, only a half hour left!" "A half hour?" repeated Elizabeth, inquiringly.