She turned aside, but the drops that glittered on her cheek now were not caused by the rain. Her shimmering silken robes seemed to utter continuous soft whispers of applause to her nervous yet graceful movements. Altogether she was an incongruous object in the unhome-like bareness of a bachelor's apartments. "You are not very cordial, monsieur," she remarked in a cold tone, as she stood with her back to him, staring hard at an uninteresting picture above the mantel-shelf; "it seems to be a pleasure to you to receive an evening caller, but not exactly a rapture." She smiled her old imperious smile as she threw herself into a tired-looking chair, while her host, with very obvious reluctance, sank into one just opposite. For an instant her beauty smote upon his brain. He leaned forward until his face touched the lapful of rare old laces that flowed wave-like from waist to knee on the dress of the girl he loved. "Darling," he murmured, "it is a rapture"--then he suddenly drew himself very far back in his chair--"but not exactly a pleasure!" She rose again and moved restlessly about the room. He stood pale, speechless, waiting for her to go--a waiting that was almost a supplication. "How could you have the courage to come to me," he breathed as she drew near him. "Because I hadn't the courage to stay away from you. I am brave enough to do, but not to endure." "My poor love! if this escapade becomes public you will have enough to endure." "I do not care for the world." She stood facing him with the absolute sincerity and trust of irresistible love. "I care for you," she said. He took the little jewelled hand and reverently kissed it. "Ah, don't do that!" she cried, drawing it away with a quick impatient frown. He drew away, supposing that he had offended her, while she, giving him the puzzled incredulous look that a woman must give a man when she discovers, not that his intuitions are duller than her own, but that he has no intuitions at all, continued her tour about the room. "Sweetheart," he said, following her, but not venturing to lay a finger upon her, "you _must_ go." His voice was earnest and very tender. "The same idea has occurred to me," she said, "but I dislike to hurry. There is nothing so vulgar as haste." Her old mocking tone had returned, and in despair he threw himself back into his seat. Something in the pathetic grace of his attitude and the beauty of his sensitive poetic face smote upon the heart that, with all its perversity, belonged alone to him. She ran to him and knelt at his side, with her white arms outstretched across his knees, and her