She patted the seat with an inviting hand, and smiled again that alluring smile. I sat down obediently and looked at her, noting how the moonlight touched her hair with silver and gave a strange glory to her face. “Since you are betrothed to another, M. de Tavernay,” she began, turning in the seat so that she faced me, “doubly betrothed, with a tie there is no breaking, and since I have satisfied myself that you are a man of honor, I feel that I can be quite frank with you--almost as I should be with my own brother, did I have one. What is it?” she asked, noticing the cloud which swept across my countenance. “Nothing, nothing,” I hastened to say. “Only there was a sting in the words, as well as kindness.” “A sting?” she repeated. “I fear you are very thin-skinned, M. de Tavernay.” “Perhaps I am,” I admitted humbly. “I shall try to remedy the fault.” “Do,” she urged. “But I was about to say that you have not yet wholly explained yourself.” “I think I have told the whole story,” I said, casting my mind back over its details. “I can think of nothing that I have omitted.” She sat for a moment looking at me, her lips parted, the color coming and going in her cheeks. “You said some time ago,” she went on at last, “that I was concerned with this story--that it was for that reason you desired my advice.” “Yes, that is true, mademoiselle.” “Well, you have not yet explained to me what you meant by that, my friend.” A sudden trembling seized me as I met her eyes. “I thought you knew,” I began hoarsely. “I thought you guessed.” “I am not good at guessing,” she said, looking up at me, her eyes radiant, her hands against her heart. “I meant,” I stammered, “I meant----” But my lips refused to form the words; my heart turned faint---- “Oh,” she said, in a low voice. “I understand;” and she played for a moment with the rose at her bosom. “You mean, then, that it is I who have wrought this change in you?” “Yes,” I assented; and caught my breath to choke back the sob which rose in my throat. She looked at me with a little frown, which changed in an instant to an arch smile. “Come,” she said, “confess that you are easily impressed, and that you will forget as easily.” “I shall never forget!” “Remember the proverb--‘That which flames at a touch dies at a breath.’” “I care nothing for proverbs. I know my own heart.”