oubt; then, suddenly, he understood her point of view; he understood
her. He had learnt to understand a number of people and a number of
points of view during the last twelve months.

"So long as I succeed?" he suggested.

"Yes," she answered, simply. "So long as you succeed, I do not see that
it can matter who you are."

"And if I succeed," pursued Loo, gravely, "will you marry me,
Mademoiselle?"

"Oh! I never said that," in a voice that was ready to yield to a really
good argument.

"And if I fail--" Barebone paused for an instant. He still doubted
his own perception. "And if I fail, you would not marry me under any
circumstances?"

"I do not think my father would let me," she answered, with her eyes
cast down upon her lace-frame.

Barebone leant forward to put together the logs, which burnt with
a white incandescence that told of a frosty night. The Marquis had
business in the town, and would soon return from the notary's, in time
to dress for dinner.

"Well," said Loo, over his shoulder, "it is as well to understand each
other, is it not?"

"Yes," she answered, significantly. She ignored the implied sarcasm
altogether. There was so much meaning in her reply that Loo turned to
look at her. She was smiling as she worked.

"Yes," she went on; "you have told me your secret--a secret. But I have
the other, too; the secret you have not told me, mon ami. I have had it
always."

"Ah?"

"The secret that you do not love me," said Juliette, in her little wise,
even voice; "that you have never loved me. Ah! You think we do not know.
You think that I am too young. But we are never too young to know that,
to know all about it. I think we know it in our cradles."

She spoke with a strange philosophy, far beyond her years. It might
have been Madame de Chantonnay who spoke, with all that lady's vast
experience of life and without any of her folly.

"You think I am pretty. Perhaps I am. Just pretty enough to enable you
to pretend, and you have pretended very well at times. You are good at
pretending, one must conclude. Oh! I bear no ill-will...."

She broke off and looked at him, with a gay laugh, in which there was
certainly no note of ill-will to be detected.

"But it is as well," she went on, "as you say, that we should understand
each other. Thank you for telling me your secret--the one you have told
me. I am flattered at that mark of your confidence. A woman is always
glad to be told a secret, and immediate