elevated her brows with an air that implied that
she greatly doubted this statement.

"Yes, thinking. It is not necessary that I should mope and shut myself
up in a cell, Martha, in order to think. I have finally come to the
end of my doubts, if that will gratify you. From now on you may rely
upon one thing, to a certainty."

Martha hesitated to put the question.

"I am not going to marry Arthur. He is charming, graceful,
accomplished; but I want a man. I should not be happy with him. I can
twist him too easily around my finger. I admit that he exercises over
me a certain indefinable fascination; but when he is out of sight it
amounts to the sum of all this doddering and doubting. It is probable
that I shall make an admirable old maid. Wisdom has its disadvantages.
I might be very happy with Arthur, were I not so wise." She smiled
again at the reflection in the mirror. "Now, let us go and astonish
the natives."

There was a mild flutter of eyelids as she sat down beside Warrington
and began to chatter to him in Italian. He made a brave show of
following her, but became hopelessly lost after a few minutes. Elsa
spoke fluently; twelve years had elapsed since his last visit to Italy.
He admitted his confusion, and thereafter it was only occasionally that
she brought the tongue into the conversation. This diversion, which
she employed mainly to annoy her neighbors, was, in truth, the very
worst thing she could have done. They no longer conjectured; they
assumed.

Warrington was too strongly dazzled by her beauty to-night to be
mentally keen or to be observing as was his habit. He never spoke to
his neighbor; he had eyes for none but Elsa, under whose spell he knew
that he would remain while he lived. He was nothing to her; he readily
understood. She was restless and lonely, and he amused her. So be it.
He believed that there could not be an unhappier, more unfortunate man
than himself. To have been betrayed by the one he had loved, second to
but one, and to have this knowledge thrust upon him after all these
years, was evil enough; but the nadir of his misfortunes had been
reached by the appearance of this unreadable young woman. Of what use
to warn her against himself, or against the possible, nay, probable
misconstruction that would be given their unusual friendship? Craig
would not be idle with his tales. And why had she put on all this
finery to-night? To subjugate him?

"You are not lis