aited, walking up and down.

Zoraida entered so quietly that she was in the room and the door shut
after her before he felt her presence.

"Bruce has gone out that way, looking for you," he said.

"I can see him presently," she answered lightly. "I think he will
wait, don't you?"

"I fancy he will," he returned bitterly. "What do you want with the
boy, Zoraida? What has he done to you that you should ruin him, first
financially and then every other way? Aren't you afraid of what you
are building up for yourself? Men like Barlow and Bruce West may let
you sing their souls to sleep for a little; look out when they wake up!"

She laughed softly.

"I think that all along you have doubted my power," she said, her eyes
steady on his. "Are you beginning to see that Zoraida Castelmar is a
girl to reckon with? You have said that the great things I attempt are
beyond me; have I failed in anything I have tried?"

"To infatuate a man is not the same thing as to build a state!"

"And yet infatuated men make obedient lieutenants."

They grew silent. In each there was much which was of its nature
incomprehensible to the other and which, of necessity, must remain so.
Slowly there came a different look upon the girl's face. Her eyes
softened and were more wistful that he had ever thought they could be.
Her breast rose and fell in a profound sigh. All of the triumph and
mockery went out of her.

"Why are you so unlike other men?" she asked. And her voice, too, had
softened and grown tender.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"Escobar hated me but he would have followed me through fire had I
beckoned. You have seen the look in your friend Barlow's eyes when he
turns to me, and this after only a few days, a few smiles! You
glimpsed just now the love that has sprung up in Bruce West's heart
like a flower full blown. There have been many, many men, my friend,
who have looked upon Zoraida Castelmar as they look. Until you came
there has been no man who turned his head away." Again she sighed
unhiddenly. Her eyes melted into his, yearning, promising, beseeching.
"And to you I have offered what would have made any other man mad with
joy."

He looked into her eyes and it seemed impossible that they could speak
shameless lies. For the moment at least she had the appearance of a
young girl without sophistication, without the skill to hide her
thoughts. Her eyes seemed unusually large, wide open frankly, as