a violence which it might be ill to excite.

"Monsieur," she faltered, and with her hand she clutched at her
riding-habit of green velvet, as if preparing to depart, "you are
not yourself. I am beyond measure desolated that you should have
so spoken to me. We have been good friends, M. La Boulaye. Let
us forget this scene. Shall we?" Her tones grew seductively
conciliatory.

La Boulaye half turned from her, and his smouldering eye fell upon
"The Discourses" lying on the grass. He stooped and picked up the
volume. The act might have seemed symbolical. For a moment he had
cast aside his creed to woo a woman, and now that she had denied
him he returned to Rousseau, and gathered up the tome almost in
penitence at his momentary defection.

"I am quite myself, Mademoiselle," he answered quietly. His cheeks
were flushed, but beyond that, his excitement seemed to have withered.
"It is you who yesternight, for one brief moment and again to-day -
were not yourself, and to that you owe it that I have spoken to you
as I have done."

Between these two it would seem as the humour of the one waned, that
of the other waxed. Her glance kindled anew at his last words.

"I?" she echoed. "I was not myself? What are you saying, Monsieur
the Secretary?"

" Last night, and again just now, you were so kind, you - you smiled
so sweetly - "