lf, perhaps--of another
person certainly.'

She drooped her eyes now, and her colour deepened and her breath came
quickly.

The Dictator went to the point at once.

'I am bad at prefaces,' he said, 'I come to speak to you on behalf of my
dear young friend and comrade, Ernest Hamilton.'

'Oh!' She drew herself up and looked almost defiantly at him.

'Yes; he asked me to come and see you.'

'What have I to do with Mr. Hamilton?'

'That you must teach me,' said Ericson, smiling rather sadly, and
quoting from 'Hamlet.'

'I can teach you that very quickly--Nothing.'

'But you have not heard what I was going to say.'

'No. Well, you were quoting from Shakespeare--let me quote too. "Had I
three ears I'd hear thee."' She drew herself back into her sofa. They
were seated on the sofa side by side. He was leaning forward--she had
drawn back. She was waiting in a sort of dogged silence.

'Hamilton is one of the noblest creatures I ever knew. He is my very
dearest friend.'

A shade came over her face, and she shrugged her shoulders.

'I mean amongst men. I was not thinking of you.'

'No,' she answered, 'I am quite sure you were not thinking of me.'

She perversely pretended to misunderstand his meaning. He hardly noticed
her words. 'Please go on,' she said, 'and tell me about Mr. Hamilton.'

'He is in love with you,' the Dictator said in a soft low-voice, and as
if he envied the man about whom that tale could be told.

'Oh!' she exclaimed impatiently, turning on the sofa as if in pain, 'I
am sick of all this love making! Why can't a young man like one without
making an idiot of himself and falling in love with one? Why can't we
let each other be happy all in our own way? It is all so horribly
mechanical! You meet a man two or three times, and you dance with him,
and you talk with him, and perhaps you like him--perhaps you like him
ever so much--and then in a moment he spoils the whole thing by throwing
his ridiculous offer of marriage right in your face! Why on earth should
I marry Mr. Hamilton?'

'Don't take it too lightly, dear young lady--I know Hamilton to the very
depth of his nature. This is a serious thing with him--he is not like
the commonplace young masher of London society; when he feels, he feels
deeply--I know what has been his personal devotion to myself.'

'Then why does he not keep to that devotion? Why does he desert his
post? What does he want of me? What do I want of him? I liked him
chiefl