haven't so many real friends that I could be indifferent about
hearing from one of them."

Amaldi said slowly without looking at her:

"I shall try to be your friend.... I shall try not to fail you."

"As if you could fail any one!"

Now he looked at her with a very curious expression--as he had looked at
her the evening he played for her. He hesitated a moment; then the words
rushed:

"Forgive me ... but it's not an easy thing to be the friend of the woman
one has loved.... Are you very angry with me?"

It came like a real shock to Sophy. Her absorption in her own troubles
had blinded her to this possibility. She could not think of the right
word to say--murmured nervously: "No ... no. I'm not angry ... only...."

"'Only'?" he took it up.

With tears in her eyes, she said:

"Oh, Amaldi ... your friendship meant so much to me!... It meant so
much!..."

This cut him cruelly. He exclaimed with passion:

"How can you speak as if it were past ... over?... I'm honest with you.
I confess that it is a struggle for me ... to feel ... to act only as
your friend. But I tell you that I shall try ... and you turn from
me...."

"No, Amaldi.... No.... That isn't just ... it isn't fair...."

"You said 'meant' ... that my friendship meant much to you ... as if it
were over...."

"No, no. But I...."

She broke off, and they stood in unhappy silence. Then all at once she
turned to him.

"Listen, Amaldi," she said impetuously. "I can't tell you ... but if you
knew...."

"I do know," he said.

They stood silent again. At last she said, under her breath:

"Then ... if you know ... you must feel that everything is over for me
... but friendship.... You must feel that.... The mere idea of ...
'love'...."

She broke off again, shivering.

Amaldi said in a constrained voice:

"I was not speaking of you, but of myself. I don't think that you can
imagine how intensely I want to be a real friend to you. As I said, not
to fail you...."

"And you think," she returned, her lips again quivering, "that I would
take your friendship at such cost to you? You think I'm as selfish ...
as unfeeling as that?"

Amaldi looked at her almost indignantly. "You know I think nothing but
the highest of you," he said. Then his voice shook, the look in his eyes
changed. "Forgive me...." he said. "It's I who am selfish."

But Sophy couldn't speak. She put up one hand to shield her face from
him, and he saw that her wedding ring was gon