rim, fixed look on his face to guide her; and in an instant it
swept away the resolve she had made in her room to treat him coldly.
In a flash of clear self-analysis just as she reached him, she
recognised the futility of any such resolve. It was with that
recognition of her weakness that fear came. . . . All her carefully
thought out plans seemed to be crumbling away like a house of cards;
all that she wanted was to be in his arms . . . to be kissed. . . .
And yet she knew that that way lay folly. . . .

"Why have you come?" she said very low. "It wasn't playing the game
after what I wrote you. . . ."

Vane looked at her in silence for a moment and then he laughed. "Are
you really going to talk to me, Joan, about such a thing as playing the
game?"

She stood beside him with her hands stretched out towards the blazing
logs. "You know how utterly weak it makes me--being near you. . . .
You're just trading on it."

"Well," said Vane fiercely, "is there any man who is a man who wouldn't
under the circumstances?"

"And yet," she said, turning and facing him gravely, "you know what is
at stake for me." Her voice began to quiver. "You're playing with
sex . . . . sex . . . . sex, and it's the most powerful weapon in the
world. But its effects are the most transitory."

"You lie, Joan, and you know it," Vane gripped her arm. "It's not the
most transitory."

"It is," she cried stamping her foot, "it is. Against it on the
other side of the balance lie the happiness of my father and
brother--Blandford--things that last. . . ."

"But what of your own happiness?" he asked grimly.

"Why do you think I shouldn't be happy?" she cried. "I've told you
that it's a purely business arrangement. Henry is very nice and kind,
and all that I'll be missing is a few months of the thing they call
Love. . . ."

Vane took his hand from her arm, and let it fall to his side. "I'm
afraid I've marked your arm," he said quietly. "I didn't know how hard
I was gripping it. There is only one point which I would like to put
to you. Has it occurred to you that in the business arrangement which
you have outlined so delightfully, it may possibly strike Mr.
Baxter--in view of his great possessions--that a son and heir is part
of the contract?" As he spoke he raised his eyes to her face.

He saw her whole body stiffen as if she had been struck; he saw her
bite her lip with a sudden little gasp, he saw the colour ebb from her
cheeks