r the first time
in my life. I saw you act."

"Well?" she asked almost defiantly.

He looked down at her. All splendid self-assurance seemed ebbing away.
She felt a sudden depression of spirit, a sudden strange sense of
insignificance.

"I have come," he said, "if I can, to buy my brother's freedom."

"To buy your brother's freedom?" she repeated, in a dazed tone.

"My brother is infatuated with you," Stephen declared. "I wish to save
him."

Her woman's courage began to assert itself. She raised her eyes to his.

"Exactly what do you mean?" she asked calmly. "In what way is any man to
be saved from me? If your brother should care for me, and I, by any
chance, should happen to care for him, in what respect would that be a
state from which he would require salvation?"

"You make my task more difficult," he observed deliberately. "Does it
amuse you to practise your profession before one so ignorant and so
unappreciative as myself? If my brother should ever marry, it is my firm
intention that he shall marry an honest woman."

Louise sat quite still for a moment. A flash of lightning had glittered
before her eyes, and in her ears was the crash of thunder. Her face was
suddenly strained. She saw nothing but the stern, forbidding expression
of the man who looked down at her.

"You dare to say this to me, here in my own house?"

"Dare? Why not? Don't people tell you the truth here in London, then?"

She rose a little unsteadily to her feet, motioning him toward the door,
and moving toward the bell. Suddenly she sank back into her former
place, breathless and helpless.

"Why do you waste your breath?" he asked calmly. "We are alone here, and
I--we know the truth!"

She sat quite still, shivering a little.

"Do we? Tell me, then, because I am curious--tell me why you are so sure
of what you say?"

"The world has it," he replied, "that you are the mistress of the Prince
of Seyre. I came to London to satisfy myself as to the truth of that
report. Do you believe that any man living, among that audience last
night, could watch the play and know that you passed, night after night,
into your bed-chamber to meet your lover with that look upon your
face--you are a clever actress, madam--and believe that you were a woman
who was living an honest life?"

"That seems impossible to you?" she demanded.

"Utterly impossible!"

"And to John?"

"I am speaking for myself and not for my brother," Stephen replied. "Men
li