“I think it is for me to complain of that!”

“How can you say such things?”

“One has seen what one has seen, these last few days.  I think you are what that original Phinuit would call ‘a fast worker,’ Liane.”

“What stupidity!  If I seek to make myself liked, you know well it is with a purpose.”

“One hardly questions that.”

“You judge harshly ...  Michael.”

Lanyard spent a look of astonishment on the darkness.  He could not remember that Liane had ever before called him by that name.

“Do I?  Sorry....”  His tone was listless.  “But does it matter?”

“You know that to me nothing else matters.”

Lanyard checked off on his fingers:  “Swain, Collison, Mussey.  Who next?  Why not I, as well as another?”

“Do you imagine for an instant that I class you with such riffraff?”

“Why, if you really want to know what I think, Liane:  it seems to me that all men in your sight are much the same, good for one thing only, to be used to serve your ends.  And who am I that you should hold me in higher rating than any other man?”

“You should know I do,” the woman breathed, so low he barely caught the words and uttered an involuntary “Pardon?” before he knew he had understood.  So that she iterated in a clearer tone of protest:  “You should know I do—­that I do esteem you as something more than other men.  Think what I owe to you, Michael; and then consider this, that of all men whom I have known you alone have never asked for love.”

He gave a quiet laugh.  “There is too much humility in my heart.”

“No,” she said in a dull voice—­“but you despise me.  Do not deny it!” She shifted impatiently in her chair.  “I know what I know.  I am no fool, whatever you think of me....  No,” she went on with emotion under restraint:  “I am a creature of fatality, me—­I cannot hope to escape my fate!”

He was silent a little in perplexed consideration of this.  What did she wish him to believe?

“But one imagines nobody can escape his fate.”

“Men can, some of them; men such as you, rare as you are, know how to cheat destiny; but women never.  It is the fate of all women that each shall some time love some man to desperation, and be despised.  It is my fate to have learned too late to love you, Michael——­”

“Ah, Liane, Liane!”

“But you hold me in too much contempt to be willing to recognise the truth.”

“On the contrary, I admire you extremely, I think you are an incomparable actress.”

“You see!” She offered a despairing gesture to the stars.  “It is not true what I say?  I lay bare my heart to him, and he tells me that I act!”

“But my dear girl! surely you do not expect me to think otherwise?”

“I was a fool to expect anything from you,” she returned bitterly—­“you know too much about me.  I cannot find it in my heart to blame you, since I am what I am, what the life you saved me to so long ago has made me.  Why should you believe in me?  Why should you credit the sincerity of this confession, which costs me so much humiliation?  That would be too good for me, too much to ask of life!”