“It is nothing but a flirtation, I assure you, Miss Vale. I am not a marrying man. I like my liberty too well. But I have offended you by my levity. I am sorry.” Her fair face was still very grave. “I have no right to lecture you,” she said, “and yet, since you were my father’s friend and mine, I will speak out. Your levity grieves me, makes me distrustful of your sincerity. For since you can speak so lightly of the woman you profess to love, how can I trust to your friendship? Perhaps you will go back to her this evening and hold me up to her idle laughter.” “Heaven forbid!” he exclaimed earnestly. “Miss Vale, will you believe that I gave vent to all that nonsense just because I wanted to brighten that grave little face with some laughter and dimples? But I have offended you instead. I will go.” But he did not move to do so. He sat still, fixing his bright, dark eyes on hers with a gaze so strange and intent that it made her shiver, although she could not take her eyes away. Gradually a hard, cold gleam crept into his bright gaze. It was a serpent charming a bird. Suddenly Italy seemed to realize that he was trying to dominate her mind by a subtle will-power of his own. With an effort she turned aside her head, avoiding that baleful gaze. Percy Seabright gave a low, strange laugh. “So you will not forgive me?” he said regretfully; “and yet you have no call to take Mrs. Dunn’s part; she has always openly hated you.” “And for that reason I can but pity her more. Her ignoble nature can but evoke the pity of a nobler mind,” Italy answered gravely, then continued: “If you wish me really for your friend, you must give over these witticisms at the expense of your friends. They pain me, they turn my heart cold with distrust of your professions.” It was true. At that moment her heart felt a strange recoil against the man whom she wished to like for her dead father’s sake. Perhaps Emmett Harlow’s warning was working in her mind; perhaps it was the strange expression with which he looked at her, a sneering smile and a strong uplifting of the black, arched brows that gave him a startling resemblance to Mephistopheles in “Faust,” completely transforming the usual sweet, winning expression into something positively uncanny. “Oh, don’t look like that!” she cried, lifting her hand with a gesture of strong repulsion. “I--am--afraid--of--you.” Percy Seabright threw back his head and laughed convulsively. “What do you mean, Miss Vale, you amusing little girl? How did I look?” “This way----” she replied frankly, and quoted the lines: “‘There was a laughing devil in his sneer, That raised emotions both of hate and fear; And where his glance of hatred darkly fell, Hope writhing fled, and mercy sighed farewell.’” Again he laughed convulsively, but her grave expression presently restored his composure.