ong, but I leave Paris to-morrow morning, and I shall not return.
I should have gone, sir, without this revelation from you, and I am
sorry that you have made it.'

'I am not,' said Paul stanchly. 'Nor do I think that you will be in a
little time. I wasted three years, Mr. Janes, in worship at that empty
shrine, and when I had most accidentally and most unwittingly surprised
another worshipper----'

'Don't mock at it, for God's sake!' said young Mr. Janes. 'I'm going
home. Good-night. I think you were right to tell me. I think I should
have done the same. You're going----' He paused there, and looked up
with a white face. 'You're going to see her in the morning?'

'On that one errand,' Paul answered.

'Well,' said Mr. Janes, 'good-bye, Armstrong.'

He offered his hand, and Paul took it warmly. Janes went dejectedly
away.

At ten minutes before the strike of noon next day Paul and Gertrude
met for the last time. She came gaily towards him with both hands
outstretched in welcome, but her face changed as he stood before her
with no recognition of her proffered salute.

'What is the matter?' she asked.

'I am here to tell you, Gertrude,' he responded. 'I told you a part of
my adventures of yesterday, but I did not tell you all. When my walk was
finished I had luncheon, and after luncheon I lay down on a chair upon
the veranda and fell asleep there. I awoke at the moment when Mr. Janes
was telling you that it was dangerous. I had not the courage to break
in upon a conversation so intimate, and--may I say it?--so familiar. I
could not get away without a risk of being seen, and so I stayed where I
was.'

She had gone white to the lips, and she was trembling, but she faced
him.

'Oh,' she said, 'I had thought you a little worthier than that! An
eavesdropper!'

'An eavesdropper!' Paul answered. 'That is understood; but not a willing
one. You have wasted a good part of my life, but of that I have no right
to complain. But I do lament a little that you should have taken away
my last illusion. I had learned a little of your adorable sex, Gertrude,
before I met you, and nothing in my experience had taught me to think
well of it. But I believed I had found in you a proof of the monstrous
falsity of the belief into which I was being thrust. Well, you see, you
confirm that belief. I shall go to my grave now in the certainty that
one-half the world is made to wheedle and befool the other half, and
that every woman is born