"These are the flowers I was speaking about," she said to him. "Have you ever seen any so large before? They look almost unnatural, don't they?"

When the servants were gone she said:

"You must think me half crazy, Seymour."

"No; but I don't understand what has happened."

"_I_ have happened, I and my miserable disgusting mind and brain and temperament. That's all!"

"You are very severe on yourself."

"Tell me--have you ever been severe on me in your mind? You don't really know me. n.o.body does or ever will. But you know me what is called well.

Have you ever been mentally severe, hard on me?"

"Yes, sometimes," he answered gravely.

She felt suddenly rather cold, and she knew that his answer had surprised her. She had certainly expected him to say, "Never, my dear!"

"I thought so," she said.

And, while saying it, she was scarcely conscious that she was telling a lie.

"But you must not think that such thoughts about you ever make the least difference in my feeling for you," he said. "That has never changed, never could change."

"Oh--I don't know!" she said in a rather hard voice. "Everything can change, I think."

"No."

"I suppose you have often disapproved of things I have done?"

"Sometimes I have."

"Tell me, if--if things had been different, and you and I had come together, what would you have done if you had disapproved of my conduct?"

"What is the good of entering upon that?"

"Yes; do tell me! I want to know."

"I hope I should find the way to hold a woman who was mine," he said, with a sort of decisive calmness, but with a great temperateness.

"But if you married an ungovernable creature?"

"I doubt if anybody is absolutely ungovernable. In the army I have had to deal with some stiff propositions; but there is always a way."

"Is there? But in the army you deal with men. And we are so utterly different."

"I think I should have found the way."

"Could he find the way now?" she thought. "Shall I do it? Shall I risk it?"

"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked; "almost as if you were looking at me for the first time and were trying to make me out?"

She did not answer, but gave him his tea and sat back on her sofa.

"You sent for me for some special reason. You had some plan, some project in your mind," he continued. "I did not realize that at first, but now I am sure of it. You want me to help you in some way, don't you?"

She was still companioned by the desperation which had come upon her when she had made that, for her, terrible comparison between Beryl Van Tuyn's age and Craven's. Somehow it had opened her eyes--her own remark.

In hearing it she had seemed to hear other voices, almost a sea of voices, saying things about herself, pitying things, sneering things, bitter things; worst of all, things which sent a wave of contemptuous laughter through the society to which she belonged. Ten years multiplied by three! No, it was impossible! But there was only one way out. She was almost sure that if she were left to herself, were left to be her own mistress in perfect freedom, her temperament would run away with her again as it had so often done in the past. She was almost sure that she would brave the ridicule, would turn a face of stone to the subtle condemnation, would defy the contempt of the "old guard," the sorrow and pity of Seymour, the anger of Beryl Van Tuyn, even her own self-contempt, in order to satisfy the imperious driving force within her which once again gave her no rest. Seymour could save her from all that, save her almost forcibly. Safety from it was there with her in the room. Rocheouart, Rupert Louth, other young men were about her for a moment. The brown eyes of the man who had stolen her jewels looked down into hers pleading for--her property. After all her experiences could she be fool enough to follow a marshlight again? But Alick Craven was different from all these men. She gave him something that he really seemed to want. He would be sorry, he would perhaps be resentful, if she took it away.

"Adela, if you cannot trust the old dog whom can you trust?"

"I know--I know!"

But again she was silent. If Seymour only knew how near he perhaps was to his greatest desire's fulfilment! If he only knew the conflict which was raging in her! At one moment she was on the edge of giving in, and flinging herself into prison and safety. At another she recoiled. How much did Seymour know of her? How well did he understand her?

"You said just now that you had sometimes been hard on me in your mind,"

she said abruptly. "What about?"

"That's all long ago."

"How long ago?"

"Years and years."

"Ten years?"

"Yes--quite."

"You have--you have respected me for ten years?"

"And loved you for a great many more."

"Never mind about love! You have respected me for ten years."

"Yes, Adela."

"Tell me--have you loved me more since you have been able to respect me?"

"I think I have. To respect means a great deal with me."

"I must have often disgusted you very much before ten years ago. I expect you have often wondered very much about me, Seymour?"

"It is difficult to understand the great differences between your own temperament and another's, of course."

"Yes. How can faithfulness be expected to understand its opposite? You have lived like a monk, almost, and I--I have lived like a courtesan."

"Adela!"

His deep voice sounded terribly hurt.