ing to her. I must see her."

He faced me with an agitated look.

"What for?" he asked.

I made him no answer, but lay back in my chair. He came toward me slowly
and with hesitation. I looked up in his face.

"I'll pay you back," he said.

"I don't want the money."

"And I don't mean the money. In fact, I'm bad at paying money back. Why
have you done it?"

"I have done it for myself, not for you. You owe me nothing. My honour
was pawned, and I have redeemed it. I was bound; I am free."

His eyes were fixed intently on me with a sort of wonder, but I motioned
him again to the door. He obeyed me without another word; after a bow he
turned and went out. I rose, and having walked to the window, looked
down into the street. I saw him crossing the roadway with a slow step
and bent head. He was going toward his club, not to his house. I stood
watching him till he turned round a corner and disappeared. Then I drew
a long breath and returned to my chair. I had hardly seated myself when
Baptiste came in with a note. It was from the Countess. "Aren't you
coming to-day?" That was all.

"There is no answer," I said, and Baptiste left me.

For I must carry the answer myself; and the answer must be, "Yes,
to-day, but not to-morrow."

There was doubtless some extravagance in my conception of the situation,
and I have not sought to conceal or modify it. It seemed to me that I
could play my part only at the cost of what was dearest to me in the
world. Money had served with Wetter; it would not serve here. My heart
must pay, my heart and hers. I remember that I sat in my chair murmuring
again and again, "To-day, but not to-morrow."

CHAPTER XIII.

I PROMISE NOT TO LAUGH.

I take it that generally when middle age looks back on the emotions of
youth and its temptations, it is to smile at the wildness of the first
and to marvel at the victories of the second. That is not my mood when I
recall the relation between the Countess and myself. For sometimes,
while passion becomes less fierce, aspiration grows less exalted. The
man who calls most, if not all, things vanity, will yield to desires
which some high-strung ideal in the boy would rout. At forty the
feelings are not so strong as at twenty, but neither are the ambitions,
the dreams, the conception of self. It is easier to resist, but it may
not seem so well worth while. Thus it is with me. I wonder not at the
beginning or progress of my first love, but at the mann