“Perhaps so.  I know, however, that your face is not really made of gold and that it has not the same charm for you that it has for others—­for me.”

“I must go,” said Agatha, suddenly in haste.

“When shall we meet again?”

“I don’t know,” she said, with a growing sense of alarm.  “I really must go.”

“Believe me, your hurry is only imaginary.  Do you fancy that you are behaving in a manner of quite ubdued ardor that affected Agatha strangely.

“But first tell me whether it is new to you or not.”

“It is not an emotion at all.  I did not say that it was.”

“Do not be afraid of it.  It is only being alone with a man whom you have bewitched.  You would be mistress of the situation if you only knew how to manage a lover.  It is far easier than managing a horse, or skating, or playing the piano, or half a dozen other feats of which you think nothing.”

Agatha colored and raised her head.

“Forgive me,” he said, interrupting the action.  “I am trying to offend you in order to save myself from falling in love with you, and I have not the heart to let myself succeed.  On your life, do not listen to me or believe me.  I have no right to say these things to you.  Some fiend enters into me when I am at your side.  You should wear a veil, Agatha.”

She blushed, and stood burning and tingling, her presence of mind gone, and her chief sensation one of relief to hear—­for she did not dare to see—­that he was departing.  Her consciousness was in a delicious confusion, with the one definite thought in it that she had won her lover at last.  The tone of Trefusis’s voice, rich with truth and earnestness, his quick insight, and his passionate warning to her not to heed him, convinced her that she had entered into a relation destined to influence her whole life.

“And yet,” she said remorsefully, “I cannot love him as he loves me.  I am selfish, cold, calculating, worldly, and have doubted until now whether such a thing as love really existed.  If I could only love him recklessly and wholly, as he loves me!”

Smilash was also soliloquizing as he went on his way.

“Now I have made the poor child—­who was so anxious that I should not mistake her for a supernaturally gifted and lovely woman as happy as an angel; and so is that fine girl whom they call Jane Carpenter.  I hope they won’t exchange confidences on the subject.”

CHAPTER VIII

Mrs. Trefusis found her parents so unsympathetic on the subject of her marriage that she left their house shortly after her visit to Lyvern, and went to reside with a hospitable friend.  Unable to remain silent upon the matter constantly in her thoughts, she discussed her husband’s flight with this friend, and elicited an opinion that the behavior of Trefusis was scandalous and wicked.  Henrietta could not bear this, and sought shelter with a relative.  The same discussion arising, the relative said: