have been good to me. Let me try and repay it a
little. Elizabeth is my sister, but listen! What I say to you now I say
in deadly earnest. Elizabeth has no heart, she has no thought for other
people, she makes use of them and they count for no more to her than
the figures that pass through one's dreams. She has some sort of hateful
gift," Beatrice continued, and her voice shook and her eyes flashed,
"some hateful gift of attracting people to her and making them do her
bidding, of spoiling their lives and throwing them away when they have
ceased to be useful. Leonard, you must not let her do this with you."

He rose to his feet awkwardly. Very likely it was all true, and yet,
what difference did it make?

"Thank you," he said.

They stood, for a moment, hand in hand. Then they heard the sound of a
key in the lock.

"Here's Annie coming back!" Beatrice exclaimed.

Tavernake was introduced to Miss Annie Legarde, who thought he was a
very strange person indeed because he did not fit in with any of the
types of men, young or old, of whom she knew anything. And as for
Tavernake, he considered that Miss Annie Legarde would have looked at
least as well in a hat half the size, and much better without the
powder upon her face. Her clothes were obviously more expensive than
Beatrice's, but they were put on with less care and taste.

Beatrice came out on to the landing with him.

"So you won't marry me, Beatrice?" he said, as she held out her hand.

She looked at him for a moment and then turned away with a faint sob,
without even a word of farewell. He watched her disappear and heard
the door shut. Slowly he began to descend the stone steps. There was
something to him a little fateful about the closed door above, the long
yet easy descent into the street.

CHAPTER XVII. THE BALCONY AT IMANO'S

At six o'clock that evening, Tavernake rang up the Milan Court and
inquired for Elizabeth. There was a moment or two's delay and then he
heard her reply. Even over the telephone wires, even though he stood,
cramped and uncomfortable, in that stuffy little telephone booth, he
felt the quick start of pleasure, the thrill of something different
in life, which came to him always at the sound of her voice, at the
slightest suggestion of her presence.

"Well, my friend, what fortune?" she asked him.

"None," he answered. "I have done my best. Beatrice will not listen to
me."

"She will not come and see me?"

"She will not