them. Harness is harness, and a light yoke-fellow can make a proud
career deviate.'

'But I give her a soul!' said Alvan. 'I am the wine, and she the crystal
cup. She has avowed it again and again. You read her as she is when
away from me. Then she is a reed, a weed, what you will; she is unfit to
contend when she stands alone. But when I am beside her, when we are
together--the moment I have her at arms' length she will be part of me by
the magic I have seen each time we encountered. She knows it well.'

'She may know it too well.'

'For what?' He frowned.

'For the chances of your meeting.'

'You think it possible she will refuse?'

A blackness passing to lividness crossed his face. He fetched a big
breath.

'Then finish my history, shut up the book; I am a phantom of a man, and
everything written there is imposture! I can account for all that she
has done hitherto, but not that she should refuse to see me. Not that
she should refuse to see me now when I come armed to demand it! Refuse?
But I have done my work, done what I said I would do. I stand in my
order of battle, and she refuses? No! I stake my head on it! I have
not a clod's perception, I have not a spark of sense to distinguish me
from a flat-headed Lapp, if she refuses:--call me a mountebank who has
gained his position by clever tumbling; a lucky gamester; whatever plays