coquetry of an hour ago.

With a quick turn of the head, she looked up at him. "But how shall I
find you in a year--or two--or three?"

She was distinctly conscious that the words held a challenge; but the
thought was fraught with the new intoxication that the evening had
created.

With a swift movement, he bent closer to her.

"The world is very small, Mrs. Milbanke--when one desires to make it
so."

In the half light of the balcony, his pale eyes seemed to search hers.

Involuntarily she blushed, but her glance met his steadily enough.

"Not until one has been ten times round it!" she reminded him.

He laughed his thin, amused laugh; then suddenly he became grave again.

"Don't you feel," he said, "that when we desire a thing very greatly,
our own will power may bend circumstances?"

Her eyes faltered, and her gaze moved to the gondolas flitting silently
below them.

"I think I have given up desiring things greatly," she said in a low,
uneven voice.

Deerehurst's eyelids narrowed.

"Would it be presumptuous to ask why?"

"No. Oh no!"

"But you will not throw light upon my darkness?"

She turned her head, and once more her gaze rested on his face.

"No," she said softly, "it isn't that. It is that I don't believe I
could enlighten you--even if I would. I am a puzzle to myself."

"The deeper a riddle, the more tempting its solution."

Very quietly he drew still nearer, until his foot touched the hem of
her skirt.

The action, more than the words, startled her. With a little laugh, she
drew back into her seat.

"Perhaps it is no riddle after all!" she said quickly. "Perhaps it is
the lack of human nature--the likeness to Mr. Luard's 'Sir Galahad.'"

She laughed again nervously. Then suddenly her own words suggested to
her a new and less dangerous channel of talk.

"When is this wonderful person to be in Venice?" she asked. "I should
like to see him."

But Lord Deerehurst had no intention of allowing another man's name to
interfere with his pleasure.

"Mrs. Milbanke," he said earnestly, "may I ask you another question---a
serious one?"

"Not till you've answered mine."

"But this is personal--personal to you and me. The other is not."

He bent over her chair; and, seemingly by accident, his hand brushed
her sleeve.

"Mrs. Milbanke----"

But even as his thin voice articulated her name, a shadow fell across
the lighted window behind them; and Serracauld, characteristically easy
and