Helene felt very kindly towards her UNCLE as she led him, after luncheon, to a quiet corner of the winter garden, where a servant had already arranged a table with coffee and liqueurs and cigarettes.

Unscrupulous all his life, there had been an element of greatness in all his schemes.

Even his failures had been magnificent, for his successes he himself had seldom reaped the reward.

And now in the autumn of his days she felt dimly that he was threatened with some evil thing against which he stood at bay single-handed, likely perhaps to be overpowered.

For there was something in his face just now which was strange to her.
"Helene," he said quietly, "I suppose that you, who knew nothing of me till you left school, have looked upon me always as a selfish, passionless creature--a weaver of plots, perhaps sometimes a dreamer of dreams, but a person wholly self-centred, always self-engrossed ?" She shook her head.
"Not selfish!" she objected.