dshes of Incense 19 1

nearly mixing the two packets, it's absolutely un- detectable (he said all this over monotonously, as though he had said it a great number of times) ; and since this morning-—when Templewaite comes out with everything, and tells people—Where will you be, if I don’t do it P”

“Yes,” echoed Paula, “where will I be? A disgraced woman, a target for everybody’s horrid gossip, a—oh, it’s unthinkable! (I have noticed that with women of temperament nothing is un- thinkable until after it has happened.) You love me too much for that, don’t you Michael?”

She was sitting on the arm of his chair, bend- ing over to him. It occurred to Michael, dully, through his gloom, that she was very big. “Of course I love you,” he said mechanically. “What else do you think I’d be doing this for? Risking my life for? Risking ”

“There——there,” Paula soothed him, herself growing calmer as he grew less calm; “it isn’t as serious as that, Michael. Try to remember it isn’t nearly as serious as that. Dolly burns scent, she is known by the servants to have grown care- less about it--using too much and that—0ne night she lights a leaf as usual before retiring, and the next morning—she simply got hold of too big a leaf, that’s all.” Paula was positively airy