ourself a hand and then
play it. I made up my mind to play with this particular invention. I
know much more about it than you do; in fact, I understand it
thoroughly. I cabled to my agent in America to buy it, if he could, and
he succeeded. Now please tell me whether you think Mrs. Rushmore,
acting for you, would have withdrawn the suit after the property had
changed hands, merely because I've dined in her house.'

'No,' Margaret was forced to admit. 'No, she would have gone on.'

'Precisely. Now I don't want property of that kind, about which there
is constant litigation. The credit of such property is injured by the
talk there always is about lawsuits. So I went to Mrs. Rushmore and
asked her what she thought your claim was worth, and she told me, and I
gave her a cheque for the money, and she has given me a full release,
as your attorney. If it had been her claim, or Madame De Rosa's or any
one else's, I should have done exactly the same thing. Will you tell me
how I could have acted otherwise in order to get the property into my
hands free of all chance of dispute? Was there any other way?'

Margaret was silent, for she could find no answer.

'There was one other way,' Logotheti continued. 'I could have proposed
that you should go into partnership with me, which is what you yourself
are proposing now. But in the eyes of the world I confess that might
look intimate, to say the least of it. Don't you think so too?'

'You're the most plausible person I ever listened to!' Margaret almost
laughed, though her anger had not subsided.

'Will you leave things as they are and forget all about this business?
What has been done cannot possibly be undone now. Won't you separate me
from it in your thoughts? You can, if you try. You know, I'm two people
in one. So are you. I'm Logotheti the financier, and I'm Logotheti the
man. You are Margaret Donne, and you are Senorita da Cordova, on the
very eve of being famous--and then, I think you are some thing else
which I don't quite understand, but which is like my fate, for I cannot
escape from you, whether I see you, or only dream of you.'

Margaret was silent, and looked at the Aphrodite while she sat on the
arm of the big chair. She might have breathed a little faster if she
had known that the two doors through which she had entered, and which
had closed so silently and surely after her, were as sound-proof as six
feet of earth. She would not have been afraid, for she was fear