“Miss Davis,” went on the man rapidly, “I have been waiting for a chance to tell you this.  Let me tell you now!”

Helen gazed wildly about her once, as if she would have fled; then she stood with her arms lying helplessly at her sides, trembling in every nerve.

“There is very little pleasure that one can get from such beautiful things alone, Miss Davis, and especially when he is as dulled by the world as myself.  I thought that some day I might be able to share them with some one who could enjoy them more than I, but I never knew who that person was until last night.  I know that I have not much else to offer you, except what wealth and position I have gained; and when I think of all your accomplishments, and all that you have to place you so far beyond me, I almost fear to offer myself to you.  But I can only give what I have—­my humble admiration of your beauty and your powers; and the promise to worship you, to give the rest of my life to seeing that you have everything in the world that you want.  I will put all that I own at your command, and get as much more as I can, with no thought but of your happiness.”

Mr. Harrison could not have chosen words more fitted to win the trembling girl beside him; that, he should recognize as well as she did her superiority to him, removed half of his deficiency in her eyes.

“Miss Davis,” the other went on, “I cannot know how you will feel toward such a promise, but I cannot but feel that what I possess could give you opportunities of much happiness.  You should have all the beauty about you that you wished, for there is nothing in the world too beautiful for you; and you should have every luxury that money can buy, to save you from all care.  If this house seemed too small for you, you should have another wherever you desired it, and be mistress of it, and of everything in it; and if you cared for a social career, you should have everything to help you, and it would be my one happiness to see your triumph.  I would give a thousand times what I own to have you for my wife.”

So the man continued, pleading his cause, until at last he stopped, waiting anxiously for a sign from the girl; he saw that she was agitated, for her breast was heaving, and her forehead flushed, but he could not tell the reason.  “Perhaps, Miss Davis,” he said, humbly, “you will scorn such things as I have to offer you; tell me, is it that?”

Helen answered him, in a faint voice, “It is not that, Mr. Harrison; it is,—­it is,—­”

“What, Miss Davis?”

“It has been but a day!  I have had no time to know you—­to love you.”

And Helen stopped, afraid at the words she herself was using; for she knew that for the first time in her life she had stooped to a sham and a lie.  Her whole soul was ablaze with longing just then, with longing for the power and the happiness which this man held out to her; and she meant to take him, she had no longer a thought of resistance.  It was all the world which offered itself to her, and she meant to clasp it to her—­to lose herself quite utterly and forget herself in it, and she was already drunk with the thought.  Therefore she could not but shudder as she heard the word “love” upon her lips, and knew that she had used it because she wished to make a show of hesitation.