of perfume seemed to ascend between them; the arrows in her eyes darted
into his. "How much--_what_ did you hear?" she demanded.

"I--am really not sure--" Was it the orchids which perfumed the air? He
had always heard they were odorless. The question intruded; his brain
seemed capable of a dual capacity, or of a general incapacity of
simultaneous considerations. He might possibly have stepped back a
little now but there was a wall, the broad blank wall behind him. He
wished he were that void she had first seemed to see--or not to see--in
him. "I didn't hear very much--the first part, I imagine--"

"The first part?" Roses of anger burned on her cheek. "And
afterward?--spy!" Her little hands were tight against her side.

He hesitated; her foot moved; all that was passionate, vibrant in her
nature seemed concentrated on him.

"I don't think I caught much; but I heard him say something about fate,
or destiny, and men coming into their own--that old Greek kind of talk,
don't you know--" He spoke lightly. Why not? There was no need of being
melodramatic. What had to be must be. He couldn't alter her, or what she
would think. "Then--then I was too busy to catch more--that is, if I had
wanted to--which I didn't!" He was forced to add the last; it burst from
his lips with sudden passion; then they curved a little as if to ask
excuse for a superfluity.

She continued to look at him, and he looked at her now, squarely; a
strange calm descended upon him.

"And that," he said, "is all I heard, or knew, until this morning, when