r cheeks flamed in
blushes and in firelight. My little device was a triumph. I began to
laugh.

"Oh, of course, if she asks me when," I added, "I shall confess that it
was ten years ago."

Many emotions mingled in my companion's glance as she sank back in her
chair; she was indignant at the trap, amused at having been caught in
it, not fully relieved from embarrassment, not wholly convinced that the
explanation of my daring speech covered all the intent with which it had
been uttered, perhaps not desirous of being convinced too thoroughly. A
long pause followed. Timidity held me back from further advance. For
that evening enough seemed to have passed; I had made a start--to go
further might be to risk all. I was about to take my leave when she
looked up again, saying:

"And about Wetter's Bill, Caesar?"

"You know I can do nothing."

"Can Caesar do nothing? If you were known to favour it fifty votes would
be changed." Her face was eager and animated. I looked down at her and
smiled. She flushed again, and cried hastily:

"No, no, never mind; at least, not to-night."

I suppose that my smile persisted, and was not a mirthful one. It
stirred anger and resentment in her.

"I know why you're smiling," she exclaimed. "I suppose that when I was
kind to you as a baby, I wanted something from you too, did I?"

She had detected the thought that had come so inevitably into my mind,
that she should resent it so passionately almost persuaded me of its
injustice. I turned from it to the pleasant memory of her earlier
impulsive kindness. I put out my hands and grasped hers. She let me hold
them for an instant and then drew them away. She gave rather a forced
laugh.

"You're too young to be bothered about Bills," she said, "and too young
for--for all sorts of other things, too. Run away; never mind me with my
Bills and my wrinkles."

"Your wrinkles!"

"Oh, if not now, in a year or two; by the time you're ready to marry
Elsa."

As she spoke she rose and stood facing me. A new sense of her beauty
came over me; her beauty's tragedy, already before her eyes, was to me
remote and impossible. Because it was not yet very near she exaggerated
its nearness; because it was inevitable I turned away from it. Indeed,
who could remember, seeing her then? Who save herself, as she looked on
my youth?

"You'll soon be old and ugly?" I asked, laughing.

"Yes, soon; it will seem very soon to you."

"What's the moral?" said I.

S