Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/334

326 'Awfully!' he confessed as he sank. 'And I believed she loved me!' he repeated as he stared at the fire.

'I didn't!' Lady Champer once more declared. This time, visibly, he heard her, and she immediately met his wonder. 'No—it was all the rest; your great historic position, the glamour of your name, and your past. Otherwise what she stood out for wouldn't be excusable. But she has the sense of such things, and they were what she loved.' So, by the fire, his hostess explained it, while he wondered the more.

'I thought that last summer you told me just the contrary.'

It seemed, to do her justice, to strike her. 'Did I? Oh, well, how does one know? With Americans one is lost!'