because he found you had a rich
father."

Her strange, soft voice seemed almost informed with dramatic passion
as she quoted his letter. It was clear she knew the whole of it by
heart. So Ingram's violation of his confidence, he reflected, had been
responsible for this interweaving of his life with Cleo's, and his
presence here to-day was but the natural continuation of the beginning
then made. He confessed to having been angered with Ingram.

"My blundering vision could not see how the strands were being woven,"
he added.

"I was certain all along they _were_ being woven," she returned. "The
incident at the time made a great impression on me, and I knew that
one day we should come together."

It gave him a thrill of joy to learn that he had been occupying her
thoughts for years past; that, having once come within her
consciousness, he had remained in her vision as a never-fading image.

"I am encouraged to ask you about yourself," he said. "You know I love
you, too."

This last statement was not an insincere one, for he did not conceive
it as a real statement made to a real human being. Cleo was his
wonderful dream-woman, and he had no notion at all of getting any
insight into her as a real woman playing an actual role in actual
life. He did not think of her as an element of real life at all; she
was simply the heroine of the fantasy he was busy weaving. His
declaration represented exactly his sentiment towards her in that
role; it expressed his sense of the fitness of things at the moment,
was the requisite correct touch the position demanded--this position
which he had mentally isolated from the rest of reality, and in which
for the time being he had lost himself.

"I know, dear," she answered. "I will tell you gladly, for I want you
to understand and appreciate me. Like you I have always been conscious
of genius, but I have had to wait long, bitter years. 'Tis always so
with genius. I have ever felt myself a chosen spirit, and I am sure I
am destined to become the greatest actress that has yet charmed and
captivated the world. Am I not tall, surpassingly beautiful,
lithe and supple as a reed--graceful as a lily? But that is not all.
In me is reincarnated the spirit of the ancient East, and it is my
mission to interpret that spirit to the modern world. I will help you,
dear, to realize that same spirit, and then one day, in a grand burst
of inspiration you shall write the play of my life. Then shall I break