of men. What more natural, then, that
all the sons of men should fall speedy victims to her fatal charms?
So far as I know, every man who has ever seen her is more or less in
love with her--and mostly more!

"As for the rest, I am as much in the dark as you are, save for the
fact that I know, on the authority of Radna, that she is not
betrothed to any one, and, so far as _she_ knows, still in the
blissful state of maiden fancy-freedom."

"Thank God for that!" said Arnold, with an audible sigh of relief.
Then he went on in somewhat hurried confusion, "But there, of course,
you think me a presumptuous ass, and so I am; wherefore"--

"There is no need for you to talk nonsense, my dear fellow. There
never can be presumption in an honest man's love, no matter how
exalted the object of it may be. Besides, are you not now the central
hope of the Revolution, and is not yours the hand that shall hurl
destruction on its enemies?

"As for Natasha, peerless and all as she is, has not the poet of the
ages said of just such as her--

She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;
She is a woman: therefore to be won?

"And who, too, has a better chance of winning her than you will have
when you are commanding the aerial fleet of the Brotherhood, and,
like a very Jove, hurling your destroying bolts from the clouds, and
deciding the hazard of war when the nations of Europe are locked in
the death-struggle? Why, you see such a prospect makes even me
poetical.

"Seriously, though, you must not consider the distance between you
too great. Remember that you are a very different person now to what
you were a couple of days ago. Without any offence, I may say that
you were then nameless, while now you have the chance of making a
name that will go down to all time as that of the solver of the
greatest problem of this or any other age.

"Added to this, remember that Natasha, after all, is a woman, and,
more than that, a woman devoted heart and soul to a great cause, in
which great deeds are soon to be done. Great deeds are still the
shortest way to a woman's heart, and that is the way you must take if
you are to hope for success."

"I will!" simply replied Arnold, and the tone in which the two words
were said convinced Colston that he meant all that they implied to
its fullest extent.

CHAPTER VIII.

LEARNING THE PART.

It was nearly eleven the next morning by the time Arnold and Colston
had finished breakfast. This