"No; I'll trade my dull smiles for your bright ones. It will be enough to cheat, without robbing you," he said, pulling himself together and allowing a dead smile to come to life. Her den was the most seductive of rooms. It was beautiful, quaint, indolent. Before he dropped into his accustomed chair his muscles were drawn taut; an instant later he was aware of a long sigh and conscious of relaxation. His brain cleared, his courage revived, and he was framing the sentences which were to lead up to that final confession. He had an eager desire to have it over with and to hurry away from her wrath. She, on the other hand, was all excitement over the report that he was at last to do book-illustrating. She brought a tingling to his heart by her undisguised gladness. Her face was so bright with joy, so alive with interest, that he could but defer striking the blow. "But perhaps you'd rather talk about some other subject than yourself," she said, finally. "I want to tell you about my brother. He is in Egypt now and he is wild over everything there:--perfectly crazy. A letter came to-day and he gives a wonderful account of a trip to an old town up the Nile. Those boys must be fairly awakening the mummies if we are to judge by his letters. He has set me wild to go to Egypt. Shall I read his letter to you?" Patiently he listened to an entertaining letter from the boy who was seeing the world with a party of friends. As she read, he watched her face. It was a face to idolize, a face to covet, a face for the memory to subsist upon forever. Stealing into his troubled heart came the realization that this girl was enthroned there beside that other loved one, both for him to worship and both to worship him. There grew into shape, positive and strong, the delightful certainty that these two women could love each other and that in so loving could share his honest love, for now he believed that his love was big enough to envelope them both. As she read to him this dream mastered and enslaved him and his heart expanded, letting in the love of this second petitioner, dividing the kingdom fairly that she might reign with the one already there. He convinced himself that he loved two women honestly, purely and with his whole soul. He loved unreservedly and equally Justine, his wife, and Celeste, his friend. "You're not listening at all," she cried, dropping the letter suddenly. "What are you thinking of?" "Of--of the very strangest of things," he stammered. "But not of the letter? I am so sorry I bored you with----"