smiled, but her eyes dreamed unchangingly
on the landscape. 'Why do you think of me?'

'Because I love you,' said Paul.

The hand which held his own seemed to encourage him to draw nearer, and
yet the sign, if there were any sign at all, was so faint that he was
afraid to obey it She turned her head slowly to look at him. Her round
soft chin stirred the lace at her shoulder and was half hidden by it,
and she sat placidly dreaming at his ardent eyes just as she had dreamed
at the hills.

'I think you do,' she said sweetly; 'but that is all nonsense. You are
only a boy, and I am a middle-aged woman.'

'Middle-aged!' said Paul, with a fiery two-syllabled laugh of scorn at
the idea.

'A woman is middle-aged at five-and-twenty. Didn't you know that, Paul?
She took his hand within her own, and played with it 'What a beautiful
hand!' she said. 'But you don't take care of it. You treat it
carelessly. Now, I spend half an hour on my hands every day. Let me show
you the difference,' and she began to draw off her glove.

'Let me,' said Paul, and she surrendered the hand and he peeled the
glove from it delicately, and held the white wonder in his own palm. He
stooped and kissed it in an idiot rapture. 'How happy you make me!' he
said, looking up with tears in his eyes. 'How I love you!'

She stroked his cheek and his hair with the soft ungloved hand, smiling
softly at him. He prisoned the hand again, and kissed it again.

'You are a silly boy,' she said; 'a dear, nice, affectionate, silly
boy!' She released her hand and caressed his cheek again. 'If you were
older than you are I shouldn't allow you to take these liberties, you
know.' Then she bent forward sideways a little, and allowed her hand to
stray beyond his shoulder. 'What makes you fancy that you love an old
woman like me, Paul?

'It's no fancy,' he said; 'it's life or death with me, Claudia.'

'Poor boy,' said Miss Belmont caressingly, and so moved nearer to him
and drew his head to her shoulder. 'Am I kind to you, Paul?'

'You are an angel,' said Paul

'Isn't it rather cruel to be kind to you, Paul?'

He buried his hot face in the soft drapery of her shoulder, and gave a
murmured 'No; oh, no!'

'You think you love me, but it's only a boy's fancy, Paul It will pass
away. I suppose it's happy whilst it lasts, when I am kind to you. But
it can't last long. I shall be sorry to part, for I like you very much.'

'We mustn't part,' said Paul huskily. 'Claudia,