me for speaking about it. Of course
we'll always be good friends. I----"

"Robin, you don't mean it. You can't!" She had risen from her knees
and now stood by him, timidly, with one hand on his arm. "You have
forgotten all those splendid times at Cambridge. Don't you remember
that evening on the Backs? Just you and I alone when there was that
man singing on the other side of the water, when you said that we would
be like that always--together. Oh, Robin dear, it can't have been all
nothing to you."

She looked very charming with her eyes a little wet and her hair a
little dishevelled. But his resolution must not weaken--now that he
had progressed so far, he must not go back. But he put his arm round
her.

"Really, old girl, it is better--for both of us. We can wait. Perhaps
in a few years' time it will seem different again. We can think about
it then. I don't want to seem selfish, but you must think about me a
little. You must see how hard it has been for me to say this, and that
it has only been with the greatest difficulty that I've been strong
enough. Believe me, dear, it is harder for me than it is for you--much
harder."

He was really getting on very well. He had had no idea that he would
do it so nicely. Poor girl! it was hard luck--perhaps he had led her
to expect rather too much--those letters of his had been rather too
warm, a little indiscreet. But no doubt she would marry some excellent
man of her own class--in a few years she would look back and wonder how
she had ever had the fortune to know so intimately a man of Robin's
rank! Meanwhile, the scene had better end as soon as possible.

She had let him keep his arm round her waist, and now she suddenly
leant back and looked up in his face.

"Robin, darling," she whispered, "you can't mean it--not that we should
part like this. Why, think of the times that we have had--the
splendid, glorious times--and all that we're going to have. Think of
all that you've said to me, over and over again----"

She crept closer to him. "You love me really, dear, all the same.
It's only that some one's been talking to you and telling you that it's
foolish. But that mustn't make any difference. We're strong enough to
face all the world. You know that you said you were in the summer, and
I'm sure that you are now. Wait till to-morrow, dear, and you'll see
it all differently."

"I tell you nobody's been talking," he said, drawing his arm away.