When her companion spoke, his voice was softened by a very tender triumph.

“Who am I,” he asked wonderingly and humbly, “that life should be so lavish and generous with me?  Mary, Mary, I told you once that you were as beautiful as starlight on water, but you are more than that.  That is only a beauty to the eye, and you are a miracle to the heart and soul as well.”

“Once,” she said while her voice trembled happily, “I was satisfied with what beauty I had.”  She bent forward with a sudden gesture of possession and tenderness, as she caught his head between her two hands.  “That was when it was my own.  Now that it’s yours I wish it were a hundred times greater.”

“And you are the girl,” he smiled, “who once pretended to think she had no soul, and very little heart.”

“If I have either, dearest,” she declared, “I owe it to you.  You found a poor little spark of soul and fanned it into life—­but a heart I have, and it’s ablaze and it’s yours to keep!” Her voice thrilled as she added:  “If I had the world to give, it should all be yours, too—­all of it.”

“I feel,” he assured her, “as though you have given me the universe.”

For a while they sat silent; then the girl’s eyes danced into sudden mischief as she reminded him, “We have still an ordeal ahead, you know.  We have to tell Hamilton.”

“A love that feared ordeals,” he laughed easily, “would hardly be worth offering you.  Does he still dislike me?”

The girl nodded.  “He isn’t exactly as mad about you as I am,” she confessed.  “But,” her head came up and the regnant pride that seemed inherent there shone from her eyes, “my life is mine to use as I wish, and I have no use for it, dear heart, save to give it to you—­for always!”

They heard the door open and close, then Hamilton’s clear voice came from the hallway.

“You are a fool, Paul,” it announced in a tone which blended irritation and indulgence.  “This is the maddest sort of whim; nevertheless, if it appeals to you—­all right.”  The two did not at once come into the library, but talked in the hall.

Paul answered nervously.

“How can you help me, Hamilton?  She’s married—­it would be impossible.”

“Impossibilities are my specialties.  You say you want this adorable lady?”

“Yes.”  The response was faint.

“Very well,” came the laconic announcement.  “You shall have her, though you are, as I said, a fool.  Loraine Haswell is a pretty and an empty-headed doll—­”

“Don’t!” Paul protested quickly, yet even in defending his lady’s name, his voice carried more of weak appeal than command.  “You mustn’t say that!”

“I repeat, she is an empty-headed doll—­but since she’s not going to be my doll I shall dismiss that feature from consideration.”

The colloquy had been so rapid that, as Hamilton and Paul showed themselves in the door, the two unwilling eaves-droppers came to their feet, startled.