t was simply that we didn't need to talk. There's
no one else in the world like that.... How long is it? Three
years--four--more than four years.

'We twain once well in sunder
What will the mad gods do
For hate with me, I wond--'"

"My God, Io! Don't!"

"Oh, Ban; I'm sorry! Have I hurt you? I was dreaming back into the old
world."

"And I've been trying all these years not to."

"Is the reality really better? No; don't answer that! I don't want you
to. Answer me something else. About Betty Raleigh."

"What about her?"

"If I were a man I should find her an irresistible sort of person.
Entirely aside from her art. Are you going to marry her, Ban?"

"No."

"Tell me why not."

"For one reason because she doesn't want to marry me."

"Have you asked her? It's none of my business. But I don't believe you
have. Tell me this; would you have asked her, if it hadn't been for--if
Number Three had never been wrecked in the cut? You see the old railroad
terms you taught me still cling. Would you?"

"How do I know? If the world hadn't changed under my feet, and the sky
over my head--"

"Is it so changed? Do the big things, the real things, ever change?...
Don't answer that, either. Ban, if I'll go out of your life now, and
stay out, _honestly_, will you marry Betty Raleigh and--and live happy
ever after?"

"Would you want me to?"

"Yes. Truly. And I'd hate you both forever."

"Betty Raleigh is going to marry some one else."

"No! I thought--people said--Are you sorry, Ban?"

"Not for myself. I think he's the wrong man for her."

"Yes; that would be a change of the earth underfoot and the sky
overhead, if one cared," she mused. "And I said they didn't change."

"Don't they!" retorted Banneker bitterly. "You are married."

"I have been married," she corrected, with an air of amiable
rectification. "It was a wise thing to do. Everybody said so. It didn't
last. Nobody thought it would. I didn't really think so myself."

"Then why in Heaven's name--"

"Oh, let's not talk about it now. Some other time, perhaps. Say next
time we meet; five or six months from now.... No; I won't tease you any
more, Ban. It won't be that. It won't be long. I'll tell you the truth:
I'd heard a lot about you and Betty Raleigh, and I got to know her and I
hoped it would be a go. I did; truly, Ban. I owed you that chance of
happiness. I took mine, you see; only it wasn't happiness that I gambled
for. Something else. Safety. The st