break her own for him. But now it looked otherwise. Clare thought there was no mistaking the first tremor of the voice, the look of the white face, and the indignation of the tone afterwards. With a man, the question of revealing his presence as a third person would have been a point of honour. In Clare’s case it was a question of delicacy and kindness as from one woman to another.

Nevertheless, she hesitated, and she might have come forward after all. Ten slow seconds had passed since Brook had spoken. Then Lady Fan’s little figure shook, her face turned away, and she tried to choke down one small bitter sob, pressing her handkerchief desperately to her lips.

“Oh, Brook!” she cried, a moment later, and her tiny teeth tore the edge of the handkerchief audibly in the stillness.

“It’s not your fault,” said the man, with an attempt at gentleness in his voice. “I couldn’t blame you, if I were brute enough to wish to.”

“Blame me! Oh, really—I think you’re mad, you know!”

“Besides,” continued the young man, philosophically, “I think we ought to be glad, don’t you?”

“Glad?  ”

“Yes—that we are not going to break our hearts now that it’s over.”

Clare thought his tone horribly business-like and indifferent.

“Oh no! We sha’n’t break our hearts any more! We are not children.” Her voice was thin and bitter, with a crying laugh in it.

“Look here, Fan!” said Brook suddenly. “This is all nonsense. We agreed to play together, and we’ve played very nicely, and now you have to go home, and I have got to stay here, whether I like it or not. Let us be good friends and say good-bye, and if we meet again and have nothing better to do, we can play again if we please. But as for taking it in this tragical way—why, it isn’t worth it.”

The young girl crouching in the shadow felt as though she had been struck, and her heart went out with indignant sympathy to the little lady in white.

“Do you know? I think you are the most absolutely brutal, cynical creature I ever met!” There was anger in the voice, now, and something more—something which Clare could not understand.

“Well, I’m sorry,” answered the man. “I don’t mean to be 

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