an,
could play that woman's part without mistake. And when it came to
talking with men of brains, she could even use a few clever phrases and
leave the rest of the conversation to them, and they were convinced of
her brilliant mind."

"You have not been a shopgirl," he said steadily. "You belong in a home
like mine. If you have lost it by some accident, that is only the
fortune of life. But you can't disguise yourself as a commonplace
person, for you're not. And--I can't let you go out of my life--I
can't."

Again silence, while the sunset skies slowly faded into the dusky blue
of night, and the lights over the distant city grew brighter and
brighter. A light wind, warmly smoky with the pleasant fragrance of
burning bonfires, touched the faces of the two in the car and blew small
curly strands of hair about Anne Linton's ears.

Presently she spoke. "I am going to promise to write to you now and
then," she said, "and give you each time an address where you may
answer, if you will promise not to come to me. I am going to tell you
frankly that I want your letters."

"You want my letters--but not me?"

"You put more of yourself into your letters than any one else I know. So
in admitting that I want your letters I admit that I want yourself--as a
good friend."

"No more than that?"

"That's quite enough, isn't it, for people who know each other only as
we do?"

"It's not enough for me. If it's enough for you, then--well, it's as I
thought."

"What did you think?"

He hesitated, then spoke boldly: "No woman really wants--a mangled human
being for her own."

Impulsively she laid her hand on his. Instantly he grasped it. "Please,"
she said, "will you never say--or think--that, again?"

He gazed eagerly into her face, still duskily visible to his scrutiny.
"I won't," he answered, "if you'll tell me you care for me. Oh, don't
you?--don't you?--not one bit? Just give me a show of a chance and I'll
make you care. I've _got_ to make you care. Why, I've thought of nothing
but you for months--dreamed of you, sleeping and waking. I can't stop;
it's too late. Don't ask me to stop--Anne--dear!"

No woman in her senses could have doubted the sincerity of this young
man. That he was no adept at love making was apparent in the way he
stumbled over his phrases; in the way his voice caught in his throat;
in the way it grew husky toward the last of this impassioned pleading of
his.

He still held her hand close. "Tell me y