rk--in French--but I'm learning a lot out of that, and--"

"There. Don't tell me any more!" cried Stanton.

Then suddenly the pulses in his temples began to pound so hard and so
loud that he could not seem to estimate at all just how loud he was
speaking.

"Who are you?" he insisted. "Who are you? Tell me instantly, I say!
_Who are you anyway?_"

The oriental lady jumped up in alarm. "I'm no one at all--to you," she
said coolly, "except just--Molly Make-Believe."

Something in her tone seemed to fairly madden Stanton.

"You shall tell me who you are!" he cried. "You shall! I say you
shall!"

Plunging forward he grabbed at her little bangled wrists and held them
in a vise that sent the rheumatic pains shooting up his arms to add
even further frenzy to his brain.

"Tell me who you are!" he grinned. "You shan't go out of here in ten
thousand years till you've told me who you are!"

Frightened, infuriated, quivering with astonishment, the girl stood
trying to wrench her little wrists out of his mighty grasp, stamping
in perfectly impotent rage all the while with her soft-sandalled,
jingling feet.

"I won't tell you who I am! I won't! I won't!" she swore and reswore
in a dozen different staccato accents. The whole daring passion of
the Orient that costumed her seemed to have permeated every fiber of
her small being.

Then suddenly she drew in her breath in a long quivering sigh. Staring
up into her face, Stanton gave a little groan of dismay, and released
her hands.

"Why, Molly! Molly! You're--crying," he whispered. "Why, little girl!
Why--"

Backing slowly away from him, she made a desperate effort to smile
through her tears.

"Now you've spoiled everything," she said.

"Oh no, not--everything," argued Stanton helplessly from his chair,
afraid to rise to his feet, afraid even to shuffle his slippers on the
floor lest the slightest suspicion of vehemence on his part should
hasten that steady, backward retreat of hers towards the door.

Already she had re-acquired her cloak and overshoes and was groping
out somewhat blindly for her veil in a frantic effort to avoid any
possible chance of turning her back even for a second on so dangerous
a person as himself.

"Yes, everything," nodded the small grieved face. Yet the tragic,
snuffling little sob that accompanied the words only served to add a
most entrancing, tip-nosed vivacity to the statement.

"Oh, of course I know," she added hastily. "Oh, of cour