“ All of the people in the room were young, all of them in their varying fashions and degrees very attractive to look upon, all full to overflowing of life and spirits and the determination to have a good time. He saw Captain Stewart moving among them, playing very gracefully his role of host, and the man seemed to have dropped twenty years from his shoulders. A miracle of rejuvenation seemed to have come upon him; his eyes were bright and eager, the colour was high in his cheeks, and the dry pedantic tone had gone from his voice. Ste. Marie watched him, and at last he thought he understood. ”

“ Marie. It would be a mistake to marry Ste. Marie—if he is what the rest of his house have been. The Ste. Maries live a life compounded of romance and imagination and emotion. You're not emotional."
"No," said Miss Benham slowly and thoughtfully. It was as if the idea were new to her. "No, I'm not, I suppose. No. Certainly not."
"As a matter of fact," said old David, "you're by nature rather cold. I'm not sure it isn't a good thing. Emotional people, I observe, are usually in hot water of some sort. When you marry you're very likely to choose with a great deal of care and some wisdom. ”

“ What he had seen there from a distance was no longer visible, but he pressed in close among the lilac shrubs and called out in an unsteady voice. He said—
"Who is there? Who is it?" And after a moment he called again.
A hand appeared at the top of the high wall. The drooping screen of foliage was thrust aside, and he saw Richard Hartley's face looking down. Ste. Marie held himself by the strong stems of the lilacs, for once more his knees had weakened under him.
"There's no one in sight," Hartley said. "I can see for a long way. No one can see us or hear us." ”

“ People with common sense fall in love in the right places."
"I don't quite like the sound of it," said Miss Benham. "Perhaps I am rather ambitious—I don't know. Yes, perhaps. I should like to play some part in the world. I don't deny that. But—am I as cold as you say? I doubt it very much. I doubt that."
"You're twenty-two," said her grandfather. "And you have seen a good deal of society in several capitals. Have you ever fallen in love?"
"'You're twenty-two. Have you ever fallen in love?'" Oddly, the face of Ste. Marie came before Miss Benham's eyes as if she had summoned it there. ”

“ Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the rose gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and he was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a complete nervous breakdown.
It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side: perils both seen and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed until his strength is gone and he can go no farther. ”

“ Marie realised all this, and he tried to turn his back and walk away, but the patch of little trees and shrubbery drew him with an irresistible fascination. Just a little look along that unknown wall! he said to himself; just the briefest of all brief reconnaissances, the merest glance beyond the masking screen of wood growth, so that in case of sudden future need he might have the lie of the place clear in his mind; for without any sound reason for it he was somehow confident that this walled house and garden were to play an important part in the rescue of Arthur Benham. ”

“ If I marry at all I ought to marry a man who is working hard in politics or in something of that kind. I could help him. We could do a great deal together."
"I could go into politics!" cried Ste. Marie, but she shook her head, smiling down upon him.
"No, not you, my dear. Politics least of all. You could be a soldier, if you chose. You could fight as your father and your grandfather and the others of your house have done. You could lead a forlorn hope in the field. You could suffer and starve and go on fighting. You could die splendidly but—politics, no! ”

“ He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark and beautiful, magnetically vital, spreading enchantment about her like a fragrance. She sat beside him on the moss-stained bench in the garden, holding out her hand cupwise, and a sunbeam lay in the hand like a little golden fluttering bird. His thoughts ran back to that first morning when he had narrowly escaped death by poison. He remembered the girl's agony of fear and horror. He felt her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he was aware that his breath was coming faster and that his heart beat quickly. ”

“ Marie."
"Failure will never hurt me, my queen," said he; "because there are no hurts in the grave, and I shall never give over searching until I succeed or until I am dead." His face was uplifted, and there was a sort of splendid fervour upon it. It was as if it shone. The girl stared at him dumbly. She began to realise that the knightly spirit of those gallant long-dead gentlemen was indeed descended upon the last of their house, that he burnt with the same pure fire which had long ago lighted them through quest and adventure, and she was a little afraid with an almost superstitious fear. ”

“ He wondered what had been happening during his six months' absence from Paris.
"I dare say that's what I feel in the air, then," he said after a little pause. "It's not calamity. It's love.
"Or maybe," he said quaintly, "it's both. L'un n'empéche pas l'autre." And he gave an odd little shiver, as if that something in the air had suddenly blown chill upon him.
They were passing the corner of the Chamber of Deputies which faces the Pont de la Concorde. Ste. Marie pulled out his watch and looked at it. ”

“ Vaguely he felt as if the recent happenings had set him ahead a pace towards his goal, though, of course, they had done nothing of the kind. The danger that would exist so long as Ste. Marie, who knew everything, was alive, seemed in some miraculous fashion to have dwindled to insignificance; in this rebound from fear and despair, difficulties were swept away and the path was clear. The man's mind leapt to his goal, and a little shiver of prospective joy ran over him. Once that goal gained he could defy the world. ”

“ So at last we leave them, walking there in the tender moonlight, with the breath of roses about them, and their eyes turned to the coming day. It is still night, and there is yet one cloud of sorrow to shadow them somewhat, for upstairs in his locked room a man lies dead across the floor with an empty pistol beside him—heart-broken, as the girl had feared. But where a great love is shadows cannot last very long, not even such shadows as this. The morning must dawn—and joy cometh of a morning. ”

“ Marie's delighted eye.
"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that soup should be seen—not heard." But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust.
"I shall tell him nothing whatever," she said. "He's quite too dreadful really. People shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. It's not only the noises. Plenty of very charming and estimable Germans, for example, make strange noises at table. But he behaves like a famished dog over a bone. I refuse to have anything to do with him. You must make up the loss to me, M. Ste. Marie. You must be as amusing as two people." ”

“ Still, a goddess! What would you? A queen among goddesses. One would not have them laugh and make little jokes—make eyes at lovesick boys. No indeed!" He shook his head rapidly and sighed.
Ste. Marie was silent for a little space, but at length he looked up as if he had just remembered something.
"And the third man?" he asked.
"Ah yes, the third gentleman," said Bernstein. "I had forgotten him. The third gentleman I knew well. He had often been here. It was he who brought these friends to me. He was M. le Capitaine Stewart. Everybody knows M. le Capitaine Stewart. Everybody in Paris." ”

“ When O'Hara looked at one, one saw only a pair of singularly keen and hard blue eyes set under a bony brow. When those eyes were turned away, the man's attention relaxed, the face became a battleground furrowed and scarred with wrecked pride and with bitterness and with shame and with agony. Most soldiers of fortune have faces like that, for the world has used them very ill, and they have lost one precious thing after another until all are gone; and they have tasted everything that there is in life, and the flavour which remains is a very bitter flavour—dry like ashes. ”

“ Most women when they return from a long evening out, look more or less the worse for it. Deadened eyes, pale cheeks, loosened coiffure tell their inevitable tale. Miss Benham looked as if she had just come from the hands of a very excellent maid. She looked as freshly soignée as she might have looked at eight that evening instead of at one. Not a wave of her perfectly undulated hair was loosened or displaced, not a fold of the lace at her breast had departed from its perfect arrangement.
"It is odd," said old David Stewart, "you taking a fancy to young Ste. Marie. ”

“ Marie had started out upon impulse, without intending more than a general reconnaissance, and therefore without leaving any word behind him. Still, the shadow of danger uplifted itself before the man and he was afraid. A sudden gust of weak anger shook him like a wind.
"In Heaven's name," he cried shrilly, "why didn't that one-eyed fool kill the fellow while he was about it? There's danger for us every moment while he is alive here. Why didn't that shambling idiot kill him?" Captain Stewart's outflung hand jumped and trembled, and his face was twisted into a sort of grinning snarl. ”

“ Sorely!" cried the girl above him.
"And now," said he, whispering.
"Now?" she said.
"Coira, I love you," said the man on the couch. And Coira O'Hara gave a single dry sob. She said—
"Oh, my dear love! now I wish that I might die after hearing you say that. My life, Bayard, is full now. It's full of joy and gratefulness and everything that is sweet. I wish I might die before other things come to spoil it."
Ste. Marie—or that part of him which lay at La Lierre, laughed with a fine scorn, albeit very weakly.
"Why not live instead?" said he. "And what can come to spoil our life for us? ”

“ All of which seems a rather startling flight of the imagination to have had its beginning in the sight of one photograph of a young woman. But then Ste. Marie was imaginative if he was anything.
He fell to thinking of this girl whose eyes, after one sight of them, had so long haunted him. He thought of her between those two men, the hard-faced Irish adventurer and the other, Stewart, strange compound of intellectual and voluptuary, and his eyes flashed in the dark and he gripped his hands together upon his knees. ”

“ Well, she shall feel it no longer."
"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.
"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or never see her again. I've sworn that." The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the look of knightly fervour, came there again, and Hartley saw it and knew that the man was stirred by no transient whim. Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries who had taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange world, a place of unknown terrors, afire for the Great Adventure. ”

“ He tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his; and he gave a little shiver. He knew that if that bouleversement were actually to take place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley was now for his; but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would be a grimace of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's black hour must be like.
"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten. I don't know why. Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose. One thinks of nothing but one's self—and one other. ”

“ Hartley was as faithful as any one who ever lived. It seemed to be nobody's fault. It had just happened.
He looked at the girl before him with a new expression, an expression of sheer curiosity. It seemed to him wellnigh incredible that any human being could be so unjust and so blind. Yet he knew her to be, in other matters, one of the fairest of all women, just and tender and thoughtful and true. He knew that she prided herself upon her cool impartiality of judgment. He shook his head with a little sigh, and ceased to wonder any more. ”

“ Marie was dark himself and, in the ordinary nature of things, he should have preferred a fair type in women. In theory, for that matter, he did prefer it; but it was impossible for him to sit near Coira O'Hara, and watch her bent head and busy hovering hands and remain unstirred by her splendid beauty. He found himself wondering why one kind of loveliness more than another should exert a potent and mysterious spell by virtue of mere proximity, and when the woman who bore it was entirely passive. ”