smisses him! But why are you sorry for Wildenai?"

With mischievous eyes he searched her face.

She flushed, then, looking squarely at him, "Because she was impulsive
like me, and just for that reason Lord Harold ran away and left her,"
she said. "He's the only one of them I never had any use for."

Blair wandered the length of the cavern and back before he replied.

"You think him a coward, I suppose." He still looked as though he wanted
to laugh, yet something in his tone seared her outraged pride. He might
as well have touched an iron to quivering flesh. "You ought to remember,
however,--I mean every woman ought to remember,--that when a girl lets a
man know that she cares for him she generally forfeits, then and there,
whatever interest she may have had for him. Wildenai risked too much.
Of course, in her case there was some excuse. She was only an untrained
barbarian. But, under ordinary circumstances, I tell you there's nothing
a man despises so much!"

What was done or said after that Miss Hastings never could have told.
She was possessed of but one desire,--to get away, to go back to the
hotel,--home, anywhere beyond the reach of his voice and his eyes. For
the moment she hated him, and although Blair, conscience smitten at
he knew not what, waited in the lobby a full hour before going in to
dinner, she did not come down.

Up in her room, mechanically brushing her hair for the night, Miss
Hastings stormily addressed the girl in the glass who stared so
scornfully back at her.

"I tell you I don't care a thing about it! He probably thought he was
justified in every word he said. He's probably smiling this very minute
because he thinks he managed it so well! But he's a coward just the
same, and I despise him,--I do despise him!" Her eyes brimming with
tears, she fiercely repeated the word. "Well, he'll soon find out how
much I really meant!"

Over and over she re-lived the short scene,--all of its humiliation, all
of its hurt, seeking at every turn solace for her woman's pride.

"Naturally I wanted to help him all I could, to appear, at least, to be
interested, especially when he was paying so much for it! It was only
a business arrangement anyway," she continued bitterly, "nothing but
business from start to finish, and if he doesn't know that yet, he'll
find it out the very first thing tomorrow morning!"

And having tumbled into bed she lay staring into the dark, planning
the details of a campaign warra