He looked up at her again and he noticed, for all this brave speech, that her hands were trembling as she clutched the handle of her blue parasol.

Triumph and joy ran through him.  He could afford to wait a little longer now, since he knew that he must mean something, even perhaps a great deal, to her.

And so for the next half-hour he played with her, he skimmed over the surface of danger, he enthralled her fancy, and with every sentence he threw the glamour of his love around her, and fascinated her soul.  All his powers of attraction—­and they were many—­were employed for her undoing.

And Theodora sat as one in a dream.

At last she felt she must wake—­must realize that she was not a happy princess, but Theodora, who must live her dull life—­and this—­and this—­where was it leading her to?

So she clasped her hands together suddenly, and she said: 

“But do you know we have grown serious, and I asked you to amuse me, Lord Bracondale!”

“I cannot amuse you,” he said, lazily, “but shall I tell you about my home, which I should like to show you some day?” And again he began to caress the farthest edge of her dress with his wild flower.  Just the smallest movement of smoothing it up and down that no one could resent, but which was disturbing to Theodora.  She did not wish him to stop, on the contrary—­and yet—­

“Yes, I would like to hear of that,” she said.  “Is it an old, old house?”

“Oh, moderately so, and it has nooks and corners and views that might appeal to you.  I believe I should find them all endowed with fresh charm myself, if I could see them with you”—­and he made the turning-point of his flower a few inches nearer her hand.

Theodora said nothing; but she took courage and peeped at him again.  And she thought how powerful he looked, and how beautifully shaped; and she liked the fineness of the silk of his socks and his shirt, and the cut of his clothes, and the wave of his hair—­and last of all, his brown, strong, well-shaped hands.

And then she fell to wondering what the general scheme of things could be that made husbands possess none of these charms; when, if they did, it could all be so good and so delicious, instead of a terribly irksome duty to live with them and be their wives.

“You are not listening to a word I am saying!” said Hector.  “Where were your thoughts, cruel lady?”

She was confused a little, and laughed gently.  “They were away in a land where you can never come,” she said.

He raised himself on his elbow, and supported his head on his hand, while he answered, eagerly: 

“But I must come!  I want to know them, all your thoughts.  Do you know that since we met on Monday you have never been for one instant out of my consciousness.  And you would not listen then to what I told you of friendship when it is born of instantaneous sympathy—­it is because in some other life two souls have been very near and dear.  And that is our case, and I want to make you feel it so, as I do.  Tell me that you do—?”