e,
Simon, you didn't seem to care a hang for me in that way--until quite
lately. You were goodness and kindness itself, and I felt that you
would stick by me as a friend through thick and thin; but I had given up
hoping for anything else. And I knew there was some one only waiting for
you, a real refined lady. So when you kissed me, I didn't dare believe
it. And I had made you kiss me. I told you so, and I was as ashamed as
if I had suddenly turned into a loose woman. And when Miss Faversham
came, I knew it would be best for you to marry her, for all the
flattering things she said to me, I knew--"

"My dear," I interrupted, "you didn't know at all. I loved you ever
since I saw you first lying like a wonderful panther in your chair at
Cadogan Gardens. You wove yourself into all my thoughts and around all
my actions. One of these days I'll show you a kind of diary I used to
keep, and you'll see how I abused you behind your back."

Her face--or the dear half of it that was visible--fell. "Oh, why?"

"For making me turn aside from the nice little smooth path to the
grave which I had marked out for myself. I regarded myself as a genteel
semi-corpse, and didn't want to be disturbed."

"And I disturbed you?"

"Until I danced with fury and called down on your dear head maledictions
which for fulness and snap would have made a mediaeval Pope squirm with
envy."

She pressed my hand. "You are making fun again. I thought you were
serious."

"I am. I'm telling you exactly what happened. Then, when I was rapidly
approaching the other world, it didn't matter. At last I died and came
to life again; but it took me a long time to come really to life. I was
like a tree in spring which has one bud which obstinately refuses to
burst into blossom. At last it did burst, and all the love that had
been working in my heart came to my lips; and, incidentally, my dear, to
yours."

This was at the early stages of her recovery, when one could only speak
of gentle things. She told me of her simple Odyssey--a period of waiting
in Paris, an engagement at Vienna and Budapest, and then Berlin. Her
agents had booked a week in Dresden, and a fortnight in Homburg, and she
would have to pay the forfeit for breach of contract.

"I'm sorry for Anastasius's sake," she said. "The poor little mite wrote
me rapturous letters when he heard I was out with the cats. He gave me a
long special message for each, which I was to whisper in its ear."

Poor lit