returned to the charge. The servant handed
him a three-cornered note; it contained these words: "Leave me alone to-
day; I will give you ten minutes to-morrow evening." Of the next thirty-
six hours he could give no coherent account, but at the appointed time
Madame Blumenthal had received him. Almost before she spoke there had
come to him a sense of the depth of his folly in supposing he knew her.
"One has heard all one's days," he said, "of people removing the mask;
it's one of the stock phrases of romance. Well, there she stood with her
mask in her hand. Her face," he went on gravely, after a pause--"her
face was horrible!" . . . "I give you ten minutes," she had said,
pointing to the clock. "Make your scene, tear your hair, brandish your
dagger!" And she had sat down and folded her arms. "It's not a joke,"
she cried, "it's dead earnest; let us have it over. You are
dismissed--have you nothing to say?" He had stammered some frantic
demand for an explanation; and she had risen and come near him, looking
at him from head to feet, very pale, and evidently more excited than she
wished him to see. "I have done with you!" she said, with a smile; "you
ought to have done with me! It has all been delightful, but there are
excellent reasons why it should come to an end." "You have been playing a
part, then," he had gasped out; "you never cared for me?" "Yes; till I
knew you; till I saw how far you would go. But now the story's finished;
we have reached the _denoument_. We will close the book and be good
friends." "To see how far I would go?" he had repeated. "You led me on,
meaning all the while to do _this_!" "I led you on, if you will. I
received your visits, in season and out! Sometimes they were very
entertaining; sometimes they bored me fearfully. But you were such a
very curious case of--what shall I call it?--of sincerity, that I
determined to take good and bad together. I wanted to make you commit
yourself unmistakably. I should have preferred not to bring you to this
place; but that too was necessary. Of course I can't marry you; I can do
better. So can you, for that matter; thank your fate for it. You have
thought wonders of me for a month, but your good-humour wouldn't last. I
am too old and too wise; you are too young and too foolish. It seems to
me that I have been very good to you; I have entertained you to the top
of your bent, and, except perhaps that I am a little brusque just now,
y