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 again soon, he meant to seek her out; but the invitation came before his processes had reached that stage.

John was impatiently prompt. His eyes leaped upon her eagerly as if to make sure she was still real, still the flesh and blood confirmation of his passion. She was,—not a doubt of it. Her eye was bright; the clasp of her hand was warm. Her personal power was never more evident, its whimsical manifestations never more varied, interesting, or captivating than now.

To John, no longer quite so hungry, for his salary was larger now, that supper was not so much a meal as a series of delightful additions to his impressions of the finer side of the character of Marien. But with the supper despatched, and his beautiful hostess again lolling in luxurious relaxation, it was her personality once more rather than her character which began to play upon him like an instrument with strings. Lazily she brooded and mused, talked and was silent, drifting from momentary vivacities to periods of depressed abstraction. Again and again John felt her eyes upon him scrutinizingly, estimatingly almost, it seemed to him. Because it was a supremely blissful experience to submit himself thus to the play of her moods, John postponed the declaration he felt impelled to make until it burst from him irresistibly, like a geyser.

"Listen!" he broke out excitedly, and began to pour out impetuously the tale of his swiftly ripened infatuation.

Marien did listen at first as if surprised, and then with a flush of pleasure that steadily deepened on her cheeks. Even when he had concluded she sat for a moment with lips half parted, eyes half closed, and an expression of enchantment upon her face as if listening to music that she wished might flow on forever.

"Do not speak!" John protested suddenly, as her ex-