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 always stimulate my intelligence even if you don’t flatter it.”

The others had moved on to the library and they had the room to themselves.

“I don’t see how I could flatter it more than I have already done,” he said in a low tone of voice.

She raised her chin a trifle and peered at him slantwise.

“Do you think that you flatter it now when you recall the mistakes of my past?”

He searched her face keenly but her blue eyes met his gaze steadily. She was smiling up at him guilelessly.

“A mistake—of course,” he said slowly. “You are young enough to afford to make mistakes. But I am old enough to wish that it hadn’t been made at my expense.”

“You still care?” she asked.

“I do.”

“If I hadn’t thought that you wanted me for your collection”

“You are cruel”

“No. I know. You wanted me for your portrait harem, and I should have been frightfully jealous of the Coningsby Venus. I couldn’t compete with that sort of thing, you know.”

He smiled at her admiringly and went on in a low tone.

“You know why I wanted you then, and why I want you now—because you’re the cleverest woman in England, and the most courageous.”

“It took courage to refuse the hand of John Rizzio.”

“It takes more courage in John Rizzio to hear those words from the lips that refused him.”