"Not--that way. But sometimes--he makes me feel as if I couldn't
escape him--as if he would persist and persist, until he won. But I
don't want love to come to me that way. It seems to me that if one
loves, one knows. One doesn't have to be shown."

"My dear, sometimes it is a tragedy when a woman knows."

"But why?"

"Because men like to conquer. When they see love in a woman's eyes,
their own love--dies."

"I should hate a man like that," said Mary, frankly. "If a man only
loves you because of the conquest, what's going to happen when you are
married and the chase is over? No, Aunt Isabelle, when I fall in love,
it will be with a man who will know that I am the One Woman. He must
love me because I am Me--Myself. Not because some one else admires me,
or because I can keep him guessing. He will know me as I know him--as
his Predestined Mate!"

Thus spoke Sweet and Twenty, glowing. And Sweet and Forty, meeting
that flame with her banked fires, faltered. "But, my dear, how can you
know?"

"How did you know?"

The abrupt question drove every drop of blood from Aunt Isabelle's
face. "Who told you?"