little about him. He is one of those men who seldom talk about themselves. He is a barrister, and he has written a volume of travels. A clever fellow, I believe, but possibly without ambition. At any rate, one never hears of his doing anything now."

"Perhaps," the Baroness remarked, with her eyes upon the stage, "he is one of those who keep their own counsel, in more ways than one. He does not look like a man who has no object in life."

Wrayson glanced downwards at the empty stall.

"Very likely," he admitted carelessly, "and yet, nowadays, it is a little difficult, isn't it, to do anything really worth doing, and not be found out? They say that the press is lynx-eyed."

Louise leaned a little forward in her chair.

"And you," she remarked, "are an editor! Do you feel quite safe, Amy? Mr. Wrayson may rob us of our most cherished secrets."

Her eyes challenged his, her lips were parted in a slight smile. Underneath the levity of her remark, he was fully conscious of the undernote of serious meaning.

"I am not afraid of Mr. Wrayson," the Baroness answered, smiling. "My age and my dressmaker are the only two things I keep entirely to myself, and I don't think he is likely to guess either."

"And you?" he asked, looking into her companion's eyes.

"There are many things," she answered, in a low tone, "which one keeps to oneself, because confidences with regard to them are impossible. And yet—"

She paused. Her eyes seemed to be following out the mystic design painted upon her fan.

"And yet?" he reminded her under his breath.

"Yet," she continued, glancing towards the Baroness, and lowering her voice as though anxious not to be overheard, "there is something poisonous, I think, about secrets. To have them known without disclosing them would be very often—a great relief."

He leaned a little towards her.

"Is that a challenge?" he asked, "if I can find out?"

The colour left her face with amazing suddenness. She drew away from him quickly. Her whisper was almost a moan.

"No! for God's sake, no!" she murmured. "I meant nothing. 

 Prev. P 39/201 next