such an excellent opportunity for retaliation--feminine
human nature, anyway."

He spoke with a kind of half-savage raillery, and Diana winced under it.
His moods changed so rapidly that she was bewildered. At one moment
there would be an exquisite gentleness in his manner when he spoke to
her, at the next a contemptuous irony that cut like a whip.

"Would it be--a punishment?" she asked at last.

He checked a sudden movement towards her.

"What do you suppose?" he said quietly.

"I don't know what to think. If it would be a punishment, why were you
so anxious to take it out of my hands? It was you who ended our
acquaintance on Sunday, remember."

"Yes, I know. Twice I've closed the door between us, and twice fate has
seen fit to open it again."

"Twice? . . . Then--then it _was_ you--in Grellingham Place that day?"

"Yes," he acknowledged simply.

Diana bent her head to hide the small, secret smile that carved her lips.

At last, after a pause--

"But why--why do you not want to know me?" she asked wonderingly.

"Not want to?" he muttered below his breath. "God in heaven! _Not want
to_!" His hand moved restlessly. After a minute he answered her,
speaking very gently.

"Because I think you were born to stand in the sunshine. Some of us
stand always in the shadow; it creeps about our feet, following us
wherever we go. And I would not darken the sunlit places of your life
with the shadow that clings to mine."

There was an undercurrent of deep sadness in his tones.

"Can't you--can't you banish the shadow?" faltered Diana. A sense of
tragedy oppressed her. "Life is surely made for happiness," she added, a
little wistfully.

"Your life, I hope." He smiled across at her. "So don't let us talk any
more about the shadow. Only"--gently--"if I came nearer to you--the
shadow might engulf you, too." He paused, then continued more lightly:
"But if you'll forgive my barbarous incivility of Sunday,
perhaps--perhaps I may be allowed to stand just on the outskirts of your
life--watch you pass by on your road to fame, and toss a flower at your
feet when all the world and his wife are crowding to hear the new _prima
donna_." He had dropped back into the vein of light, ironical mockery
which Diana was learning to recognise as characteristic of the man. It
was like the rapier play of a skilled duellist, his weapon flashing
hither and thither, parrying every thrust of his opponent, and with
consummate