ve me time, dear?"

"All the time you ask for," she answered. "Oh! I know that I am asking
a great deal, but you see I am not a very strong person, and if I give
up everything else, I do want someone to lean on just a little. You
are very strong, Henry," she added, softly.

He took her face between his hands, and he kissed her, without
passion, yet kindly, even tenderly.

"My dear," he said, "I must think this thing out. At any rate, we
might start by seeing a little more of one another?"

"Yes!" she answered shyly. "I should like that."

"I will drive you down to Ranelagh to-morrow," he said, "alone, and we
will have lunch there."

"I shall love it," she answered. "Good night!"

She kissed him timidly, and flitted away into her room with a little
backward glance and a wave of the hand. Rochester stood where she had
left him, watching the place where she had disappeared, with the look
in his eyes of a man who sees a ghost.

CHAPTER XXXI

BETWEEN LOVE AND DUTY

Rochester's hansom set him down in Cadogan Street just as a new and
very handsome motor-car moved slowly away from the door. His face
darkened as he recognised Saton leaning back inside, and he ignored
the other's somewhat exaggerated and half ironical greeting.

"Lady Marrabel is 'at home'?" he asked the butler, who knew him well.

The man hesitated.

"She will see you, no doubt, sir," he remarked. "We had our orders
that she was not 'at home' this afternoon."

"The gentleman who has just left--" Rochester began.

"Mr. Saton," the butler interrupted. "He has been with Lady Marrabel
for some time."

Rochester found himself face to face with Pauline, but it was a
somewhat grim smile with which he welcomed her.

"Still fascinated, I see, by the new science, my dear Pauline," he
said. "I met your professor outside. He has a fine new motor-car. I
imagine that after all he has discovered the way to extract money from
science."

Pauline shrugged her shoulders.

"Those are matters which do not concern me," she said--"I might add,
do not interest me. You are the only man I know who disputes Mr.
Saton's position, and you are wrong. He is wonderfully, marvelously
gifted."

Rochester bowed slightly.

"Perhaps," he said, "I judge the man, and not his attainments."

"You are very provincial," she declared. "But come, don't let us
quarrel. You did not come here to talk about Mr. Saton."

"No!" Rochester answered. "I had something else to s