they had told to no other man living or dead. And all that
was artificial, all that was fantastic, all that was glamour, was
stripped away from Paul in the instant of her self-revelation. He loved
her as man loves woman. He laughed aloud as his young feet struck the
frozen road. She knew and was not angry. She, in her wonder, gave him
leave to love her. It was obvious that she loved him to love her. Dear
God! He could go on loving her like this for the rest of his life. What
more did he want? To the clean man of nine-and-twenty, sufficient for
the day is the beauty thereof.

An inspired youth took his place at the Winwoods' dinner table that
evening. The elderly, ugly heiress, Miss Durning, concerning whom Miss
Winwood had, with gentle malice, twitted him some months before, sat by
his side. He sang her songs of Araby and tales of far Cashmere--places
which in the commonplace way of travel he had never visited. What
really happened in the drawing room between the departure of the ladies
and the entrance of the men no one knows. But before the ladies went to
bed Miss Winwood took Paul aside.

"Paul dear," she said, "you're never going to marry an old woman for
money, are you?"

"Good God, no! Dearest lady, what do you mean?"

His cry was so sincere that she laughed.

"Nothing," she said.

"But you must mean something." He threw out his hands.

"Are you aware that you've been flirting disgracefully with Lizzle
Durning?"

"I?" said Paul, clapping a hand to his shirt-front.

"You."

He smiled his sunny smile into the clear, direct eyes of his dearest
lady--all the more dear because of the premature white of her hair. "I
would flirt to-night with Xantippe, or Kerenhappuch, or Queen
Victoria," said he.

"Why?"

He laughed, and although none of the standing and lingering company had
overheard them, he gently led her to the curtained embrasure of the
drawing-room window.

"This is perhaps the biggest day of my life. I've not had an
opportunity of telling you. This morning Frank Ayres offered me a seat
in Parliament."

"I'm glad," said Ursula Winwood; but her eyes hardened. "And so--Lizzie
Durning--"

He took both her elbows in his hands--only a Fortunate Youth, with his
laughing charm, would have dared to grip Ursula Winwood's elbows and
cut her short. "Dearest lady," said he, "to-day there are but two women
in the world for me. You are one. The other--well--it isn't Miss
Durning."

She searched him thr