“I thought I heard my name when I came in,” she said.  “Were you and Lord Loring speaking of me?”

Romayne owned without hesitation that they had been speaking of her.

She smiled and turned over another photograph.  But when did sun-pictures ever act as a restraint on a woman’s curiosity?  The words passed her lips in spite of her.  “I suppose I mustn’t ask what you were saying?”

It was impossible to answer this plainly without entering into explanations from which Romayne shrank.  He hesitated.

She turned over another photograph.  “I understand,” she said.  “You were talking of my faults.”  She paused, and stole another look at him.  “I will try to correct my faults, if you will tell me what they are.”

Romayne felt that he had no alternative but to tell the truth—­under certain reserves.  “Indeed you are wrong,” he said.  “We were talking of the influence of a tone or a look on a sensitive person.”

“The influence on Me?” she asked.

“No.  The influence which You might exercise on another person.”

She knew perfectly well that he was speaking of himself.  But she was determined to feel the pleasure of making him own it.

“If I have any such influence as you describe,” she began, “I hope it is for good?”

“Certainly for good.”

“You speak positively, Mr. Romayne.  Almost as positively—­only that can hardly be—­as if you were speaking from experience.”

He might still have evaded a direct reply, if she had been content with merely saying this.  But she looked at him while she spoke.  He answered the look.

“Shall I own that you are right?” he said.  “I was thinking of my own experience yesterday.”

She returned to the photographs.  “It sounds impossible,” she rejoined, softly.  There was a pause.  “Was it anything I said?” she asked.

“No.  It was only when you looked at me.  But for that look, I don’t think I should have been here to-day.”

She shut up the photographs on a sudden, and drew her chair a little away from him.

“I hope,” she said, “you have not so poor an opinion of me as to think I like to be flattered?”

Romayne answered with an earnestness that instantly satisfied her.

“I should think it an act of insolence to flatter you,” he said.  “If you knew the true reason why I hesitated to accept Lady Loring’s invitation—­if I could own to you the new hope for myself that has brought me here—­you would feel, as I feel, that I have been only speaking the truth.  I daren’t say yet that I owe you a debt of gratitude for such a little thing as a look.  I must wait till time puts certain strange fancies of mine to the proof.”

“Fancies about me, Mr. Romayne?”

Before he could answer, the dinner bell rang.  Lord and Lady Loring entered the library together.