feelings?" asked Nick.

"Oh, well,"--she hesitated--"he couldn't care all that. It's only his
love of interference."

"Or his love of you? I wonder which!" whispered Nick.

"Nick! Nick!" Wonder, dismay, incredulity, mingled in the cry.

But Nick had already slipped free from the clinging of her arms, and he
did not pause in answer.

"Good-night, Olga _mia_!" he called back to her softly from the door.
"Don't forget to knock on the wall if you feel squeamish!"

And with that he was gone. The latch clicked behind him, and she was
alone.

CHAPTER XI

THE IMPOSSIBLE

Could it be true? Sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking, all through
the night Olga asked herself the question; and when morning came she was
still unconvinced. Nothing in Max's manner had ever given her cause to
imagine for an instant that he cared for her. Never for an instant had
she seriously imagined that he could care. Till quite recently she had
believed that a very decided antipathy had existed between them. True,
it had not thriven greatly since the writing of her note; but that had
been an event of only two days before. She was sure he had not cared for
her before that. He could not have begun to care since! And if he had,
how in wonder could Nick have come to know?

Certainly he knew most things. His uncanny shrewdness had moved her many
a time before to amazement and admiration. This quickness of intellect
was hers also, but in a far smaller degree. She could leap to
conclusions herself and often find them correct. But Nick--Nick
literally swooped upon the truth with unerring precision. She had never
known him to miss his mark. But this time--could he be right this time?
It was such a monstrous notion. Its very contemplation bewildered her,
carried her off her feet, made her giddy. She began to be a little
frightened, to cast back her thoughts over all her intercourse with Max
to ascertain if she had ever given him the smallest reason for loving
her. Most emphatically she had never felt drawn towards him. In fact,
she had often been repelled. In all their skirmishes she had invariably
had the worst of it. He had simply despised her resistance, treating it
as a thing of nought. And yet--there was no denying it--their intimacy
had grown. Who but an intimate friend could have made that suggestion
for encompassing her deliverance from the persecutions of that hateful
man? Her face burned afresh over the memory of this. It had cert