you have turned it rosy. But suppose it is all
mirage, and you the enchanter?"

He smiled at her--consciously, superabundantly. It was not easy to keep
quite cool with Julie Le Breton; the self-satisfaction she could excite
in the man she wished to please recoiled upon the woman offering the
incense. The flattered one was apt to be foolishly responsive.

"That is my risk," she said, with a little shrug. "If I make you
confident, and nothing comes of it--"

"I hope I shall know how to behave myself," cried Warkworth. "You see,
you hardly understand--forgive me!--your own personal effect. When
people are face to face with you, they want to please you, to say what
will please you, and then they go away, and--"

"Resolve not to be made fools of?" she said, smiling. "But isn't that
the whole art--when you're guessing what will happen--to be able to
strike the balance of half a dozen different attractions?"

"Montresor as the ocean," said Warkworth, musing, "with half a dozen
different forces tugging at him? Well, dear lady, be the moon to these
tides, while this humble mortal looks on--and hopes."

He bent forward, and across the glowing fire their eyes met. She looked
so cool, so handsome, so little yielding at that moment, that, in
addition to gratitude and nattered vanity, Warkworth was suddenly
conscious of a new stir in the blood. It begat, however, instant recoil.
Wariness!--let that be the word, both for her sake and his own. What had
he to reproach himself with so far? Nothing. He had never offered
himself as the lover, as the possible husband. They were both _esprits
faits_--they understood each other. As for little Aileen, well, whatever
had happened, or might happen, that was not his secret to give away. And
a woman in Julie Le Breton's position, and with her intelligence, knows
very well what the difficulties of her case are. Poor Julie! If she had
been Lady Henry, what a career she would have made for herself! He was
very curious as to her birth and antecedents, of which he knew little or
nothing; with him she had always avoided the subject. She was the child,
he understood, of English parents who had lived abroad; Lady Henry had
come across her by chance. But there must be something in her past to
account for this distinction, this ease with which she held her own in
what passes as the best of English society.

Julie soon found herself unwilling to meet the gaze fixed upon her. She
flushed a little and b