prepared for breakfast,--which we do
not have served in our rooms according to the degenerate modern
custom,--and then had gone to find her, with the thought in my mind
that, whatever she suffered or feared, it was my duty to help her as
best I might. I had promised myself to be cheerful, yielding, and as
entertaining as possible.

She was sitting on the side of her bed when I came in. The whiteness of
the linen and the pale blue of her morning gown served to bring out the
delicate color of her skin. I was so delighted with this indication of
renewed health that I opened my mouth to express my admiration.

She was quicker than I.

"You find me attractive this morning," she said with a sad little smile.
"I am glad. I wish that I might be attractive to you forever and
ever.--I mean my shoulders, my arms, my hands--free from wrinkles or fat
or dryness."

"I'd love you now if you were to assume the shape of a Chinese dragon,"
I said seriously, "--or the Sheik of Baalbec."

The truth was that I had almost forgotten this latter creature, the
automaton. Apparently she had, too, for at first a puzzled look came to
her eyes, then she smiled up at me with a bit of her own individual
coquetry.

"You are making love this morning?" she said in a gay voice. Yet it
seemed to me that in it was a trace of eagerness, shrewdly directed
toward a concealed purpose.

"I am going to ask you to go away, Jerry," she went on timidly, but
still smiling.

"Go away? When? For what purpose?" I exclaimed.

"Just go away for me--for my sake," she answered, straightening her
body, raising her head, and looking squarely at me with some of her old
strength. "You can go to live in a hotel. You can explain that you are
forced to do so for some business reason. You can say that I have gone
away."

She must have seen the flush of my anger, for she raised her hand.

"Don't!" she pleaded. "I know very well how unreasonable I may seem. But
if I have earned any gratitude or respect or love from you, just give me
what I ask now and give it to me blindly--without question."

Her eyes held my own as she said these words and I knew she had cast
her spell over me.

"What do you propose to do for these three weeks?" I asked roughly.

"I shall stay in this house," she answered, spacing her words. "Margaret
will stay, too. The rest of the servants I shall send away. But of this
I want to be sure--you must not come to find me for three weeks. God
only