longed to make a friend of you," she interrupted herself to
say.

Jack coloured furiously while filled with indignant pity for her. Poor
girl!--after all, she was quite young!... He did not care how old she
was; she was young enough to be pitied for the rotten time her selfish
husband gave her.

They spent a supremely innocent evening looking through albums of
photographs and talking football and polo. The dinner was excellent, and
Mrs. Fox, clever in the art of entertaining, modelled her conversation
to suit his manly tastes, in the end breaking down all his natural
shyness and placing him on terms of easy friendship. When Jack
eventually rose to go he was flattered by her open reluctance to part
with him; her pleasure in his society had been so frank and appealing.

"I have never enjoyed an evening so much in my life, Jack," she said
cooingly. "Why are you so different from other men?"

"Am I?" he asked in some confusion as she retained his hand in hers.

"In a thousand ways. I almost wish I had never met you, Jack!"

"Why?" he asked, his breath suddenly short, his heart beating a rapid
tattoo in his breast. For the life of him he could not say the easy
pretty things that fell so naturally from other men's lips.

"Because--Oh! why, you must know--I shall always be making comparisons
which are odious, and remember, I have to put up with only odiousness!"

"I hate to think of it," he said huskily.

"It is sweet to think you mind."

"It makes a fellow--mad to do something. It's damned hard and cruel for
you!"

"Never mind, dear boy. Come again, come often, will you?" she pleaded,
leaning her head against the pillar behind her and looking languishingly
up at him with the moonlight full on her face and throat, bathing her in
a pale radiance.

Jack's eyes swept the deserted verandah. He did not know that the
servants were well drilled in the etiquette of keeping out of the way
when the lady of the house entertained a male visitor. "Good-bye," he
said indistinctly, moving a step nearer.

"Good-bye," she returned almost inarticulately, her eyes melting to his
own. "I shall weep my heart out when you are gone."

"Why?" he demanded unsteadily.

"For the things that I have missed. I always dream of a man just like
you--you are the man of my dreams come to me--too late!--and my heart
has been starved so long!"

"Don't," he said sharply. "I am not made of stone."

Their faces were very near together, so near,