d, moistened her lips with her tongue, and then broke out:

"I'll tell you. A decent lady like your Eleanor Faversham wouldn't tell.
But I can't keep these things in. Didn't you begin by saying I was a
seductress? No, no, let me talk. Didn't you say I could make a man do
what I wanted? Well, I wanted you to kiss me. And now you've done it,
you think you love me; but you don't, you can't."

"You're talking the wickedest nonsense that ever proceeded out of the
lips of a loving woman," I said aghast. "I repeat in the most solemn way
that I love you with all my heart."

"In common decency you couldn't say otherwise."

Again I saw the futility of disputation. I put my hand on hers.

"Time will show, dear. At any rate, we have had our hour of fairyland."

"I wish we hadn't," she said. "Don't you see it was only my sorcery, as
you call it, that took us there? I meant us to go."

At last we reached Cadogan Gardens. I descended and handed her out, and
we entered the hall of the mansions. The porter stood with the lift-door
open.

"I'm coming up to knock all this foolishness out of your head."

"No, don't, please, for Heaven's sake!" she whispered imploringly. "I
must be alone--to think it all out. It's only because I love you so. And
don't come to see me for a day or two--say two days. This is Wednesday.
Come on Friday. You think it over as well. And if it's really true--I'll
know then--when you come. Good-bye, dear. Make Gray drive you wherever
you want to go."

She wrung my hand, turned and entered the lift. The gates swung to and
she mounted out of sight. I went slowly back to the brougham, and gave
the chauffeur the address of my eyrie. He touched his hat. I got in
and we drove off. And then, for the first time, it struck me that an
about-to-be-shabby gentleman with a beggarly two hundred a year, ought
not, in spite of his quarterings, to be contemplating marriage with a
wealthy woman who kept an electric brougham. The thought hit me like a
stone in the midriff.

What on earth was to be done? My pride rose up like the _deux ex
machina_ in the melodrama and forbade the banns. To live on Lola's
money--the idea was intolerable. Equally intolerable was the idea
of earning an income by means against the honesty of which my soul
clamoured aloud.

"Good God!" I cried. "Is life, now I've got to it, nothing but an
infinite series of dilemmas? No sooner am I off one than I'm on another.
No sooner do I find that Lola and