“For heaven’s sake tell me,” she cried passionately, “what has come to you, what manner of a man are you? You loved me once! Now, even, after all these years, you cannot deny it. You have gone out of your way to be with me, to be my companion wherever we are. People are beginning to smile when they see us together. I don’t mind. I--for God’s sake tell me, Wingrave! Why do you do it? Why do you lend me this money? What can I do for you? What do you want me to be? Are you as cold as a stone? Have you no heart--no heart even for friendship!” “I would not seek,” he answered, “to buy--your friendship with a check!” “But it is yours already,” she cried, holding out her hands. “Give me a little kindness, Wingrave! You make me feel and seem a perfect idiot. Why, I’d rather you asked me anything that treated me like this.” “I was under the impression,” Wingrave remarked, “that I was behaving rather well. I wonder what would really satisfy you!” “To have you behave as you are doing, and want to behave differently,” she cried. “You are magnificent--but it is because you are indifferent. Will you kiss me, Wingrave?” “With pleasure!” he answered. She drew away from him quickly. “Is it--another woman?” she asked. “The Marchioness?” Her eagerness was almost painful. He did not answer her at once. She caught hold of his wrist and drew him towards her. Her eyes searched his face. “The Marchioness,” he said, “is a very beautiful woman. She does not, however, affect the situation as between you and me.” “If she dared!” Lady Ruth murmured. “Wingrave, won’t you try and be friends with me?” “I will try--certainly,” he answered. “You would be surprised, however, if you could realize the effect of a long period of enforced seclusion upon a man of my--” “Don’t!” she shrieked; “stop!” “My temperament, I was about to say,” he concluded. “There was a time when I am afraid I might have been tempted, under such circumstances as these, to forget that you were no longer free, to forget everything that except we were alone, and that you--are as beautiful as ever you were!” “Yes!” she murmured, moving imperceptibly a little nearer towards him. He picked up the check and gave it to her. “I am no actor,” he said, looking at her steadily. “At present, I make no conditions. But--” She leaned towards him. He took her face between his hands and kissed her on the lips. “I may make them later,” he said. “I reserve my right.” She looked at him for a moment, and dropped her veil. “Please take me down to my carriage,” she asked. THE INDISCRETION OF THE MARCHIONESS “I am perfectly certain,” Juliet declared, “that we ought not to be here.” “That,” Aynesworth remarked, fanning himself lightly with his pocket handkerchief, “may account for the extraordinary sense of pleasure which I am now experiencing. At the same time, I can’t see why not.”