now," she said hurriedly. "It is an inexhaustible
subject."

"Inexhaustible indeed," he answered, with an enigmatic laugh.

She read his thoughts. She knew very well what was in his mind, what
was almost on his lips, and she struggled to be free of him.

"Mr. Saton," she said, "I am sorry--but you must really let me go."

He did not move.

"It is very hard to let you go," he murmured. "Can't you--don't you
realize a little that it is always hard for me to see you go--to see
you leave the world where we have at least interests in common, to go
back to a life of which I know so little, a life in which I have so
small a part, a life which is scarcely worthy of you, Pauline?"

Again she felt a sort of physical impotence. She struggled desperately
against the loss of nerve power which kept her there. She would have
given anything in the world to have left him, to have run out of the
room with a little shriek, out into the streets and squares she knew
so well, to breathe the air she had known all her life, to escape from
this unknown emotion. She told herself that she hated the man whose
will kept her there. She was sure of it. And yet--!

"I do not understand you," she said, "and I must, I really must go.
Can't you see that just now, at any rate, I don't want to understand?"
she added, fighting all the time for her words. "I want to go. Please
do not keep me here against my will. Do you understand? Let me go, and
I will be grateful to you."

Somehow the strain seemed suddenly lightened. He was only a very
ordinary, rather doubtful sort of person--a harmless but necessary
part of interesting things. He had moved toward the door, which he was
holding open for her to pass through.

"Thank you so much," she said, with genuine relief in her tone. "I
have stayed an unconscionable time, and I found your Master
delightful."

"You will come again?" he said softly. "I want to explain a little
further what Naudheim was saying. I can take you a little further,
even, than he did to-day."

"You must come and see me," she answered lightly. "Remember that after
all the world has conventions."

He stepped back on to the doorstep after he had handed her into her
carriage. She threw herself back amongst the cushions with something
that was like a sob of relief. She had sensations which she could not
analyze--a curious feeling of having escaped, and yet coupled with it
a sense of something new and strange in her life, something o