t her white
fingers more and more rapidly. Then:

"No," she answered softly.

Monte Irvin hesitated for a moment ere bending forward and grasping her
hands.

"I am glad you are not satisfied," he whispered. "I always knew you had
a soul for something higher--better."

She avoided his ardent gaze, but he moved to the settee beside her and
looked into the bewitching face.

"Would it be a great sacrifice to give it all up?" he whispered in a yet
lower tone.

Rita shook her head, persistently staring at the tassel.

"For me?"

She gave him a swift, half-frightened glance, pressing her hands against
his breast and leaning, back.

"Oh, you don't know me--you don't know me!" she said, the good that was
in her touched to life by the man's sincerity. "I--don't deserve it."

"Rita!" he murmured. "I won't hear you say that!"

"You know nothing about my friends--about my life--"

"I know that I want you for my wife, so that I can protect you from
those 'friends.'" He took her in his arms, and she surrendered her lips
to him.

"My sweet little girl," he whispered. "I cannot believe it--yet."

But the die was cast, and when Rita went to the theatre to dress for the
afternoon performance she was pledged to sever her connection with the
stage on the termination of her contract. She had luncheon with Monte
Irvin, and had listened almost dazedly to his plans for the future.
His wealth was even greater than her mother had estimated it to be, and
Rita's most cherished dreams were dwarfed by the prospects which Monte
Irvin opened up before her. It almost seemed as though he knew and
shared her dearest ambitions. She was to winter beneath real Southern
palms and to possess a cruising yacht, not one of boards and canvas like
that which figured in The Maid of the Masque.

Real Southern palms, she mused guiltily, not those conjured up by
opium. That he was solicitous for her health the nature of his schemes
revealed. They were to visit Switzerland, and proceed thence to a villa
which he owned in Italy. Christmas they would spend in Cairo, explore
the Nile to Assouan in a private dahabiyeh, and return home via the
Riviera in time to greet the English spring. Rita's delicate, swiftly
changing color, her almost ethereal figure, her intense nervous energy
he ascribed to a delicate constitution.

She wondered if she would ever dare to tell him the truth; if she ought
to tell him.

Pyne came to her dressing-room just before the