er."

She pressed his hand lightly, her eyes still fixed on the
light-smeared darkness.

He went on more gravely: "Candour and the intuition born of common
sense,--that is where you are so admirable, dear. Add to that the
tenderest heart that ever beat, and a proud ignorance of the lesser,
baser emotions--and, who am I to interfere,--to come into the sweet
order of your life with demands that confuse you--with complaints
against the very destiny I brought upon us both--with the clamour of
a selfish and ignoble philosophy which your every instinct rejects,
and which your heart entertains only because it _is_ your heart, and
its heavenly sympathy has never failed me yet.... Oh, Athalie,
Athalie, it would be a shameful day for me and a bitter day for you if
my selfishness and irresolution ever swerved you. What I have lost--if
I have indeed lost it--is lost irrevocably. And I've got to learn to
face it."

She said, still gazing absently into the darkness: "Yes. But I am just
beginning to wonder what it is that _I_ may have lost,--what it is
that I have never known."

"Don't think of it! Don't permit anything I have said or done to
trouble you or stir you toward such an awakening.... I don't want to
stand charged with that. You are tranquil, now--"

"I--_was_."

"You are still!" he said in quick concern. "Listen, Athalie--the
majority of men lose their grip at moments; men as irresolute as I
lose it oftener. Don't waste sympathy on me; it was nothing but a
whine born of a lesser impulse--born of emotions less decent than you
could comprehend--"

"Maybe I am beginning to comprehend."

"You shall not! You shall remain as you are! Dear, don't you realise
that I can't steady myself unless I can look up to you? You've raised
yourself to where you stand; you've made your own pedestal. Look down
at me from it; don't ever _step_ down; don't ever condescend; don't
ever let me think you mortal. You are not, now. Don't ever descend
entirely to my level--even if we marry."

She turned, smiling too wisely, yet adorably: "What endless romance
there is in that boy's heart of yours! There always was,--when you
came running back to me where I stood alone by the closed door,--when
you found me living as all women who work live, and made a beautiful
home for me and gave me more than I wished to take, asking nothing of
me in return. Oh, Clive, you were chivalrous and romantic, too, when
you listened to your mother's wishes and gav