“I did it for your good.”

“My dear, have you ever heard the story of the tender-hearted elephant?  No?  It was told in a wonderful book published years ago and called ‘The Fables of George Washington AEsop.’  This is it.  There was once an elephant who accidentally trod on the mother of a brood of newly-hatched chickens.  Her tender heart filled with remorse for what she had done, and, overflowing with pity for the fluffy orphans, she wept bitterly, and addressed them thus:  ’Poor little motherless things, doomed to face the rough world without a parent’s care, I myself will be a mother to you.’  Whereupon, gathering them under her with maternal fondness, she sat down on the whole brood.”

The unbandaged half of her face lit up with a wan smile.  “Did I do that?”

“I didn’t conceive it possible that you could love me except for the outside things.”

“You might have waited and seen,” said I in mild reproof.

She sighed.  “You’ll never understand.  Do you remember my saying once that you reminded me of an English Duke?”

“Yes.”

“You made fun of me; but you must have known what I meant.  You see, Simon, you didn’t seem to care a hang for me in that way—­until quite lately.  You were goodness and kindness itself, and I felt that you would stick by me as a friend through thick and thin; but I had given up hoping for anything else.  And I knew there was some one only waiting for you, a real refined lady.  So when you kissed me, I didn’t dare believe it.  And I had made you kiss me.  I told you so, and I was as ashamed as if I had suddenly turned into a loose woman.  And when Miss Faversham came, I knew it would be best for you to marry her, for all the flattering things she said to me, I knew—­”

“My dear,” I interrupted, “you didn’t know at all.  I loved you ever since I saw you first lying like a wonderful panther in your chair at Cadogan Gardens.  You wove yourself into all my thoughts and around all my actions.  One of these days I’ll show you a kind of diary I used to keep, and you’ll see how I abused you behind your back.”

Her face—­or the dear half of it that was visible—­fell.  “Oh, why?”

“For making me turn aside from the nice little smooth path to the grave which I had marked out for myself.  I regarded myself as a genteel semi-corpse, and didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“And I disturbed you?”

“Until I danced with fury and called down on your dear head maledictions which for fulness and snap would have made a mediaeval Pope squirm with envy.”

She pressed my hand.  “You are making fun again.  I thought you were serious.”

“I am.  I’m telling you exactly what happened.  Then, when I was rapidly approaching the other world, it didn’t matter.  At last I died and came to life again; but it took me a long time to come really to life.  I was like a tree in spring which has one bud which obstinately refuses to burst into blossom.  At last it did burst, and all the love that had been working in my heart came to my lips; and, incidentally, my dear, to yours.”