"Powers of observation but no curiosity, thank goodness," Lady Elisabeth
declared. "Perhaps that is just as well, for I can see that you are
going to turn out to be a very mysterious person."

"In some respects I believe that I am," he assented equably. "My
peculiar beliefs are responsible for a good deal, you see--and certain
circumstances. . . . But tell me--we have both agreed to be
frank--why have you changed your attitude towards me so completely? I
scarcely dared to hope even for your recognition this morning."

She was suddenly thoughtful.

"That was the very question I was asking myself when we crossed the
street just now," she remarked, with a faint smile.

Maraton was conscious of a curious and undefined sense of pleasure in
her words. In the act of crossing he had held her arm for a few
moments, and though her assent to his physical guidance had been purely
negative, there was yet something about it which had given him a vague
pleasure. Instinctively he knew that she was of the order of women to
whom the merest touch from a man whom they disliked would have been
torture.

"I think," she went on, "that it is because I am trying to adopt my
uncle's point of view towards you."

"And what is your uncle's point of view?"

"He believes you," she declared, "to be a very dangerous person, a rabid
enthusiast with brains and also stability--the most difficult order of