“A great disillusionment waits for you,” she said honestly. “I am only a womanly hypocrite. I am not worthy of the violet crown nor the vanguard. I’m as simple hearted as Lorraine and far more stupid when you come to know the real me.... I have always loved you. I flirted only to see if it would not rouse the man of you to protest. I let Lissa influence me, harm my voice, color my notions, to see if you would not speak out as ‘my man,’ not my singing teacher, my master critic.... I tried in every avenue I could, Bliss, to make you care. Finally, you told me your vision and the greatest joy of it was not the vision but the thought you were sharing it with me. I told myself, ‘at last I have something to work for, something with which I can tempt his interest—bait for his affection’—you see? So I set to work to live according to your ideals, not that I did not believe it, but because you, your own self, had told me of it and it was your fondest wish to see it realized.... Miss Clergy’s death brought me the fortune ... the glorious ending of the war my opportunity ... and so on. Now you say you love me. And I love you. But I warn you that all your visions and ideals mattered not so much as the fact of your sharing them with me, the nearest I had ever come to being essential to some one, belonging to some one—as I fancied in the old circus days when I played the bearded lady was my mother and the animals my brothers and sisters. F-funny, isn’t it? Well, am I altogether too disappointing—clay toes will peep out but it is better you should see them now—not later.” She waited his verdict, her head tilted defiantly and the glorious, blue eyes smiling bravely. He did not hesitate. “Do you know a man’s greatest joy is to discover the one he loves best of every one is not all gray angel, that he will not have to exist on the heights, even though he is prepared to break masculine precedent and do so, but a real woman with adorable weaknesses and amusing faults, spasms of ‘intuition’ and bothers about becoming hats and concern as to the said man’s habit of not wearing overshoes—that she will not scorn a broad shoulder to weep on if the cook leaves unceremoniously, nor a bit of domination when it comes to selecting the right school for the boy or the number of frocks for the girl’s coming out? Now, I’ve matched clay toes with you, most delightful lover’s game in the world.... Let me whisper something else, Thurley; I was growing afraid of you. I thought I had better capture you while you were content to be merely a gray angel lest you become the shining, white spirit of the vanguard and such a happening be made impossible.” Without waiting for her approval, he took her in his arms. Making the nightly rounds to see if the windows were properly fastened, Ali Baba paused in the offing. He glanced up at the mistletoe under which he had happened to halt and smiled with sentimental satisfaction.