int blur of light that came from the open window. Then
quietly she said:

"Well, Condy?"

"Well, Blix?"

"Just 'well'?" she repeated. "Is that all? Is that all you have to say
to me?"

He gave a great start.

"Blix!" he exclaimed.

"Is that all? And you are going to let me go away from you for so long,
and say nothing more than that to me? You think you have been so
careful, think you have kept your secret so close! Condy, don't you
suppose I know? Do you suppose women are so blind? No, you don't need
to tell me; I know--I've known it--oh, for weeks!"

"You know--know--know what?" he exclaimed, breathless.

"That you have been pretending that you did not love me. I know that
you do love me--I know you have been trying to keep it from me for fear
it would spoil our good times, and because we had made up our minds to
be chums, and have 'no more foolishness.' Once--in those days when we
first knew each other--I knew you did not love me when you said you
did; but now, since--oh, since that afternoon in the Chinese
restaurant, remember?--I've known that you did love me, although you
pretended you didn't. It was the pretence I wanted to be rid of; I
wanted to be rid of it when you said you loved me and didn't, and I
want to be rid of it now when YOU pretend not to love me and I KNOW you
do," and Blix leaned back her head as she spoke that "know," looking at
him from under her lids, a smile upon her lips. "It's the pretence
that I won't have," she added. "We must be sincere with each other,
you and I."

"Blix, do YOU love ME?"

Condy had risen to his feet, his breath was coming quick, his cigarette
was flung away, and his hands opened and shut swiftly.

"Oh, Blixy, little girl, do YOU love ME?"

They stood there for a moment in the half dark, facing one another,
their hearts beating, their breath failing them in the tension of the
instant. There in that room, high above the city, a little climax had
come swiftly to a head, a crisis in two lives had suddenly developed.
The moment that had been in preparation for the last few months, the
last few years, the last few centuries, behold! it had arrived.

"Blix, do you love me?"

Suddenly it was the New Year. Somewhere close at hand a chorus of
chiming church bells sang together. Far off in the direction of the
wharves, where the great ocean steamships lay, came the glad, sonorous
shouting of a whistle; from a nearby street a bugle called aloud. And
the