over here
and sit down."

She came slowly, as if impelled, and she stood before him. To Lane it
seemed as if she were both supplicating and inexorable.

"Do you remember the last time we sat together on this couch?" she
asked.

"No, Mel, I don't."

"It was four years ago--and more. I was sixteen. You tried to kiss me
and were angry because I wouldn't let you."

"Well, wasn't I rude!" he exclaimed, facetiously. Then he grew
serious. "Mel, do you remember it was Helen's lying that came between
you and me--as boy and girl friends?"

"I never knew. Helen Wrapp! What was it?"

"It's not worth recalling and would hurt you--now," he replied. "But
it served to draw me Helen's way. We were engaged when she was
seventeen.... Then came the war. And the other night she laughed in my
face because I was a wreck.... Mel, it's beyond understanding how
things work out. Helen has chosen the fleshpots of Egypt. You have
chosen a lonelier and higher path.... And here I am in your little
parlor asking you to marry me."

"No, no, no! Daren, don't, I beg of you--don't talk to me this way,"
she besought him.

"Mel, it's a difference of opinion that makes arguments, wars and
other things," he said, with a cruelty in strange antithesis to the
pity and tenderness he likewise felt. He could hurt her. He had power
over her. What a pang shot through his heart! There would be an
irresistible delight in playing on the emotions of this woman. He
could no more help it than the shame that surged over him at
consciousness of his littleness. He already loved her, she was all he
had left to love, he would end in a day or a week or a month by
worshipping her. Through her he was going to suffer. Peace would now
never abide in his soul.

"Daren, you were never like this--as a boy," she said, in wondering
distress.

"Like what?"

"You're hard. You used to be so--so gentle and nice."

"Hard! I? Yes, Mel, perhaps I am--hard as war, hard as modern life,
hard as my old friends, my little sister----" he broke off.

"Daren, do not mock me," she entreated. "I should not have said hard.
But you're strange to me--a something terrible flashes from you. Yet
it's only in glimpses.... Forgive me, Daren, I didn't mean hard."

Lane drew her down upon the couch so that she faced him, and he did
not release her hand.

"Mel, I'm softer than a jelly-fish," he said. "I've no bone, no fiber,
no stamina, no substance. I'm more unstable than water. I'm so soft