e was in love with her! How plainly those eyes must
speak! Her control gave way.

"All this is very interesting," she said, spurning her words like Noel,
"considering that he's more than my friend, Edward." It gave her a sort
of pleasure to see him wince. 'These blind bats!' she thought, terribly
stung that he should so clearly assume her out of the running. Then she
was sorry, his face had become so still and wistful. And turning away,
she said:

"Oh! I shan't break my heart; I'm a good loser. And I'm a good fighter,
too; perhaps I shan't lose." And snapping off a sprig of geranium, she
pressed it to her lips.

"Forgive me," said Pierson slowly; "I didn't know. I'm stupid. I
thought your love for your poor soldiers had left no room for other
feelings."

Leila uttered a shrill laugh. "What have they to do with each other?
Did you never hear of passion, Edward? Oh! Don't look at me like that.
Do you think a woman can't feel passion at my age? As much as ever, more
than ever, because it's all slipping away."

She took her hand from her lips, but a geranium petal was left clinging
there, like a bloodstain. "What has your life been all these years," she
went on vehemently--"suppression of passion, nothing else! You monks
twist Nature up with holy words, and try to disguise what the eeriest
simpleton can see. Well, I haven't suppressed passion, Edward. That's
all."

"And are you happier for that?"

"I was; and I shall be again."

A little smile curled Pierson's lips. "Shall be?" he said. "I hope so.
It's just two ways of looking at things, Leila."

"Oh, Edward! Don't be so gentle! I suppose you don't think a person
like me can ever really love?"

He was standing before her with his head down, and a sense that, naive
and bat-like as he was, there was something in him she could not reach or
understand, made her cry out:

"I've not been nice to you. Forgive me, Edward! I'm so unhappy."

"There was a Greek who used to say: 'God is the helping of man by man.'
It isn't true, but it's beautiful. Good-bye, dear Leila, and don't be
sorrowful"

She squeezed his hand, and turned to the window.

She stood there watching his black figure cross the road in the sunshine,
and pass round the corner by the railings of the church. He walked
quickly, very upright; there was something unseeing even about that back
view of him; or was it that he saw-another world? She had never lost the
mental habits