utmost care. And so Ned Tremayne became subtle for the first time in
his honest, straightforward, soldierly life. "No," he answered boldly,
"I do not intend it."

"I am glad that you spare me that," she answered him, yet her pallor
seemed to deepen under his glance.

"And that," he continued, "is the source of all my anger, against
you, against myself, and against circumstances. If I had deemed myself
remotely worthy of you," he continued, "I should have asked you weeks
ago to be my wife. Oh, wait, and hear me out. I have more than once been
upon the point of doing so--the last time was that night on the balcony
at Count Redondo's. I would have spoken then; I would have taken my
courage in my hands, confessed my unworthiness and my love. But I was
restrained because, although I might confess, there was nothing I could
ask. I am a poor man, Sylvia, you are the daughter of a wealthy one; men
speak of you as an heiress. To ask you to marry me--" He broke off.
"You realise that I could not; that I should have been deemed a
fortune-hunter, not only by the world, which matters nothing, but
perhaps by yourself, who matter everything. I--I--" he faltered,
fumbling for words to express thoughts of an overwhelming intricacy. "It
was not perhaps that so much as the thought that, if my suit should
come to prosper, men would say you had thrown yourself away on a
fortune-hunter. To myself I should have accounted the reproach well
earned, but it seemed to me that it must contain something slighting to
you, and to shield you from all slights must be the first concern of my
deep worship for you. That," he ended fiercely, "is why I am so angry,
so desperate at the slight you have put upon yourself for my sake--for
me, who would have sacrificed life and honour and everything I hold of
any account, to keep you up there, enthroned not only in my own eyes,
but in the eyes of every man."

He paused, and looked at her and she at him. She was still very white,
and one of her long, slender hands was pressed to her bosom as if to
contain and repress tumult. But her eyes were smiling, and yet it was a
smile he could not read; it was compassionate, wistful, and yet tinged,
it seemed to him, with mockery.

"I suppose," he said, "it would be expected of me in the circumstances
to seek words in which to thank you for what you have done. But I have
no such words. I am not grateful. How could I be grateful? You have
destroyed the thing that I most v