sort of thing."

"But if she should ask you, Jimmie?"

Again he stared at her. "I jolly well shouldn't give her a chance. Not
after the way she treated me."

"What way?"

"Oh, making me think I was the whole thing--and then--throwing me down."

"Oh, so you don't like being thrown down?"

"No. I don't like that kind of a woman. You know the kind of woman I
like, Anne."

The caressing note in his voice came to her like an echo of other days.
But now it had no power to move her.

"I am not sure that I do know the kind of woman you like--tell me."

"Oh, I like a woman that is a woman, and makes a man feel that he's the
whole thing."

"But mustn't he be the whole thing to make her feel that he is?"

He flung himself out of his chair and stood before her. "Anne," he
demanded, "can't you do anything but ask questions? You aren't a bit like
you used to be."

She laid down her work and now he could see her eyes. Such steady eyes!
"No, I'm not like myself. You see, Jimmie, I have been away for a year,
and one learns such a lot in a year."

He felt a sudden sense of loss. There had always been the old Anne to
come back to. The Anne who had believed and had sympathized. Again his
voice took on a plaintive note. "Be good to me, girl," he said. Then very
low, "Anne, I was half afraid to come to-day."

"Afraid--why?"

"Oh, I suppose you think I acted like a--cad."

"What do _you_ think?"

"Oh, stop asking questions. It was the only thing to do. You were poor
and I was poor, and there wasn't anything ahead of me--or of you--surely
you can't blame me."

"How can I blame you for what was, after all, my great good fortune?"

"Your what?"

She said it again, quietly, "My great good fortune, Jimmie. I couldn't
see it then. Indeed, I was very unhappy and sentimental and cynical over
it. But now I know what life can hold for me--and what it would not have
held if I had married you."

"Anne, who has been making love to you?"

"Jimmie!"

"Oh, no woman ever talks like that until she has found somebody else. And
I thought you were constant."

"Constant to what?"

"To the thought--to--to the thought of what we might be to each other
some day."

"And in the meantime you were asking Eve to marry you. Was it her money
that you wanted?"

"Her money! Do you think I am a fortune-hunter?"

"I am asking you, Jimmie?"

"For Heaven's sake, stop asking questions. You know how a pretty woman
goes to my head. And she's