ring. I do my best--in a clumsy way, no doubt--to spare you my
heavy society. But of course I do not presume to form an opinion upon
your--upon you."

"But I want you to form an opinion," she said petulantly.

"Then you must know that I could only form one which would be pleasing
to you."

"I know nothing of the sort," replied Etta. "Of course I know that all
that you say about position and work is mere irony. Paul thinks there is
no one in the world like you."

Steinmetz glanced sharply down at her. He had never considered the
possibility that she might love Paul. Was this, after all, jealousy? He
had attributed it to vanity.

"And I have no doubt he is right," she went on. Suddenly she gave a
little laugh. "Don't you understand?" she said. "I want to be friends."

She did not look at him, but sat with pouting lips holding out her hand.

Karl Steinmetz had been up to the elbows, as it were, in the diplomacy
of an unscrupulous, grasping age ever since his college days. He had
been behind the scenes in more than one European crisis, and that which
goes on behind the scenes is not always edifying or conducive to a
squeamishness of touch. He was not the man to be mawkishly afraid of
soiling his fingers. But the small white hand rather disconcerted him.

He took it, however, in his great, warm, soft grasp, held it for a
moment, and relinquished it.

"I don't want you to address all your conversation to Maggie, and to
ignore me. Do you think Maggie so very pretty?"

There was a twist beneath the gray mustache as he answered, "Is that all
the friendship you desire? Does it extend no farther than a passing wish
to be first in petty rivalries of daily existence? I am afraid, my dear
princess, that my friendship is a heavier matter--a clumsier thing than
that."

"A big thing not easily moved," she suggested, looking up with her
dauntless smile.

He shrugged his great shoulders.

"It may be--who knows? I hope it is," he answered.

"The worst of those big things is that they are sometimes in the way,"
said Etta reflectively, without looking at him.

"And yet the life that is only a conglomeration of trifles is a poor
life to look back upon."

"Meaning mine?" she asked.

"Your life has not been trifling," he said gravely.

She looked up at him, and then for some moments kept silence while she
idly opened and shut her fan. There was in the immediate vicinity of
Karl Steinmetz a sort of atmosphere of sympathy w