"Do you by any miracle of chance remember an injunction I laid upon you one afternoon by the roadside?"
Mary Burton looked up and answered with a nod of her head. "Does any woman ever forget her first compliment?"
"What was it?"
"'Wield leniently the dangerous gift of your witchcraft—the—'" She abruptly broke off in the quotation and found herself coloring like a schoolgirl, so Jefferson Edwardes took up the injunction where she had left it incomplete. "The freakish beauty of your perfect, unmatched eyes," he prompted.
The girl felt a strange flutter in her breast. Just now she had blushed. What had happened to the poise of her usual self-command? Some influence was abroad tonight or some hypnotism in those steady eyes that gave her a sense of vague apprehension. It was an apprehension though that thrilled her strangely with a welcome fear—and a promise. Tides were stirring that were all new tides. It was as though marvels were possible. She heard him saying again as he had said once before, "You are as beautiful as starlight on water."
"So was Cleopatra, my friend. So was Helen of Troy. So were ... Circe and Faustina."
"But they," he laughed, "did not wield kindly the power of their eyes."
Mary Burton winced, then she turned and faced him. Her voice trembled.
"Why did I have to meet you tonight? It isn't fair! They have schooled my brain into every useless vanity. They have fed my selfishness until it has strangled my heart. Never until today did I face the truth. All afternoon I've been sitting alone—hating myself. I am nothing but an artificial little flirt, and I have not obeyed your injunction." She paused, then hurried on with the forced manner of one resolved upon full confession! "Perhaps so far I've hurt only myself—but I've done that—mortally. Then you come and I learn that you've woven an illusion about me—and I destroy it."
Jefferson Edwardes smiled in the dark, but spoke gravely.