The Secret Power

And there swept over her mind the memory of Manella--her rich, warm, dark beauty--her frank abandonment to passions purely primitive,--and she smiled, a cold little weird smile.

"He may marry her,"--she said--"And yet--I think not! But--if he does marry her he will never love her--as he loves ME! How we play at cross-purposes in our lives!--he is not a marrying man--I am not a marrying woman--we are both out for conquest on other lines,--and if either of us wins our way, what then? Shall we be content to live on a triumph of power,--without love?"