"I hope you're not joking," said Kirk. "Jove! I--I'm knocked clear off my pins." A tremendous wave of excitement surged over him. "So, that's what Alfarez meant. That's what SHE meant last night when she told me to look up--" He broke off suddenly, for Edith's face had gone chalk-white. "But, Kirk, what about me?" she asked, in a strained voice. There was deathlike silence in the room. "You can't LOVE her," said the woman. "Why, she's only a child, and she's--Spanish." They stood motionless, facing each other. At last Kirk said, gravely and deliberately, "Yes, I love her better than anything in the world and I want to marry her. I could give up my country, my dad--anything for her." Pressing her gloved fingers to her temples she turned her head blindly from side to side, whispering as if to herself: "What will become of me?" "Don't," he cried, in a panic, and cast a hurried look over his shoulders. "You'll be overheard--you'll be seen. You don't know what you're saying. Where's Cortlandt?" "At his club, I suppose. I don't know--I--I don't care." Then the paralysis that had numbed her vanished, and she spoke with quivering intensity. "You've been dishonest with me, Kirk." "Don't act this way," he ordered, roughly. "I'm terribly fond of you, but I never knew--" "You MUST have known." "I knew NOTHING. I chose not to think. What I saw I forgot. I supposed you merely liked me as I liked you." "That night at Taboga!" she flared up. "What about that? Couldn't you tell then? I fought--fought--fought--but I had to give up. You haven't forgotten--those wonderful hours we had together?" She began to sob, but steadied herself with an effort. "You say you didn't know, then what about that afternoon in the jungle? Oh, you're not blind; you must have seen a thousand times. Every hour we've been alone together I've told you, and you let me go on believing you cared. Do you think that was right? Now you are shocked because I admit it," she mocked. "Well, I have no pride. I am not ashamed. It's too late for shame now. Why, even my husband knows." With an exclamation he seized her by the arm. "You don't mean that!" he cried, fiercely. But she wrenched herself away. "Why, do you think, I made a man of you? Why did I force you up and up and over the heads of others? Why are you in line for the best position on the railroad? Did you think you had made good by your own efforts?" She laughed harshly. "I took Runnels and Wade and Kimble and the others that you liked and forced them up with you, so you'd have an organization that couldn't be pulled down." "Did--did you do all that?"