"It is I that must ask you what has changed you, Arthur," she said, more in sadness than in bitterness, though in both.

"I don't seem to know you this evening." Arthur lost the last remnant of his self-consciousness.

He saw he was about to lose, if indeed he had not already lost, that which had come to mean life to him--the happiness from this woman's beauty, the strength from her character, the sympathy from her mind and heart.

It was in terror that he asked: "Why, Madelene?
What is it?
What have I done ?" And in dread he studied her firm, regular profile, a graceful strength that was Greek, and so wonderfully completed by her hair, blue black and thick and wavy about the temple and ear and the nape of the neck.
The girl did not answer immediately; he thought she was refusing to hear, yet he could find no words with which to try to stem the current of those ominous thoughts.

At last she said: "You talk about the position you have 'come down from' and the position you are going back to--and that you are grateful to your father for having brought you down where you were humble enough to find me." "Madelene!" "Wait!" she commanded.