" she said unsteadily. But he could not
speak, and stood savagely controlling his quivering lip with his
teeth.

"I just want you as I had you, Clive--my first boy friend--who turned
aside from the bright highway of life to speak to a ragged child.... I
have had the boy; I have had the youth; I want the man, Clive,--honestly,
in perfect innocence.

"Would you care what might be said of us--as long as we know our
friendship is blameless? I am not taking you from _her_, am I? I am
not taking anything away from her, am I?

"I have not always played squarely with men. I don't think it is
possible. They have hoped for--various eventualities. I have not
encouraged them; I have merely let them hope. Which is not square.

"But I wish always to play square with women. Unless a woman does,
nobody will.... And that is why I ask you, Clive--am I robbing her--if
you come back to me--as you were?--nothing more--nothing less, Clive,
but just exactly as you were."

It was impossible for him to control his voice or his words or even
his thoughts just yet; he stood with his lean head turned partly from
her, motionless as a rock, in the desperate grip of self-mastery,
crushing the slender hands that alternately yielded and clasped his
own.

"Oh, Clive," she said, "Clive! You don't know--you never can know what
loneliness means to such a woman as I am.... I thought once--many
times--that I could never again speak to you--that I never again could
care to hear about you.... But I was wrong, pitifully wrong.

"It was not jealousy of her, Clive; you know that, don't you? There
had never been any question of such sentiment between you and
me--excepting once--one night--that last night when you said
good-bye--and you were very much overwrought.

"So it was not jealousy.... It was loneliness. I wanted you, even if
you had fallen in love. That sort of love had nothing to do with us!

"There was nothing in it that ought to have come between you and
me?... Besides, if such an ephemeral thought ever drifted through my
idle mind, I knew on reflection that you and I could never be destined
to marry, even if such sentiment ever inclined us. I knew it and
accepted it without troubling to analyse the reasons. I had no desire
to invade your world--less desire now that I have penetrated it
professionally and know a little about it.

"It was not jealousy, Clive."

He swung around, bent swiftly and pressed his lips to her hands. And
she abandon