“You have many qualifications, I should think,” she observed cuttingly.

“Such as?”

“You are absolutely callous, absolutely without heart or sympathy where your work is concerned.”

“I do not admit it,” he protested.

“I go back to London to-morrow,” she continued, “a very miserable and unhappy woman.  I take with me the letter which should have brought me happiness.  The love for which I have sacrificed my life has failed me.  Not even the whip of a royal command, not even all that I have to offer, can give me even five seconds of happiness.”

“All that I have pleaded for,” Dominey reminded her earnestly, “is delay.”

“And what delay do you think,” she asked, with a sudden note of passion in her tone, “would the Leopold Von Ragastein of six years ago have pleaded for?  Delay!  He found words then which would have melted an iceberg.  He found words the memory of which comes to me sometimes in the night and which mock me.  He had no country then save the paradise where lovers walk, no ruler but a queen, and I was she.  And now—­”

Dominey felt a strange pang of distress.  She saw the unusual softening in his face, and her eyes lit up.

“Just for a moment,” she broke off, “you were like Leopold.  As a rule, you know, you are not like him.  I think that you left him somewhere in Africa and came home in his likeness.”

“Believe that for a little time,” Dominey begged earnestly.

“What if it were true?” she asked abruptly.  “There are times when I do not recognise you.  There are words Leopold used to use which I have never heard from your lips.  Is not West Africa the sorcerer’s paradise?  Perhaps you are an imposter, and the man I love is there still, in trouble—­perhaps ill.  You play the part of Everard Dominey like a very king of actors.  Perhaps before you came here you played the part of Leopold.  You are not my Leopold.  Love cannot die as you would have me believe.”

“Now,” he said coolly, “you are coming round to my way of thinking.  I have been assuring you, from the very first moment we met at the Carlton, that I was not your Leopold—­that I was Everard Dominey.”

“I shall put you to the test,” she exclaimed suddenly, rising to her feet.  “Your arm, if you please.”

She led him across the hall to where little groups of people were gossiping, playing bridge, and Seaman, the center of a little group of gullible amateur speculators, was lecturing on mines.  They stopped to say a word or two here and there, but Stephanie’s fingers never left her companion’s arm.  They passed down a corridor hung with a collection of wonderful sporting prints in which she affected some interest, into a small gallery which led into the ballroom.  Here they were alone.  She laid her hands upon his shoulders and looked up into his eyes.  Her lips drew nearer to his.

“Kiss me—­upon the lips, Leopold,” she ordered.