"Free! How can I be free?"
He laughed once more, and the dreariness of that laughter rang suddenly hours afterward in her ears. "Those things can always be arranged," he said. "But I am going to ask you a favor." Although he said "favor" her quick ear caught the ring of authority in his tone. "Since you are not sure that you love Gresham, I am going to ask that you wait a year before securing your legal freedom. You shall have it, whether you decide on him or not. Oh, believe that. Ah, one more request. Let me urge you not to have your portrait painted just now. In view of possible future events, it is much wiser, much safer to let that go for the present. I think you will have to trust my judgment here. There is no danger of your beauty waning." Again his worn and flashing smile. "And now, it is very late and I think you had better get some sleep. Good night." He smiled again, but she noticed how dreadfully tired he looked. She winced a bit in soul.
"I am sorry that it has been such a fizzle," she turned to him with a sort of shy, girlish friendliness and impulsiveness.
He smiled again and lightly touched her cheek with his finger. "Give no more thought to that." He turned abruptly away.
"Ah, Dita," his voice arrested her from the threshold, "one more request I am going to make and that is that you get your amulet to-morrow. If not I shall have to see about it myself and I am really too busy to bother with it at present." Again that iron ring of authority was in his voice, but authority masked in velvet. "Will you very kindly attend to this, my dear?"
She nodded mutely from the doorway, but did not lift her down-bent head, nor raise her eyes to his.