ew what it was to care for a woman before, I tell you. There's that
mill," he repeated, naively. "I've made it the best mill in the country,
I've got the biggest order that ever came to any mill--if you went away I
wouldn't care a continental about it. If you went away I wouldn't have
any ambition left. Because you're a part of it, don't you see? You--you
sort of stand for it now, in my mind. I'm not literary, I can't express
what I'd like to say, but sometimes I used to think of that mill as a
woman--and now you've come along--" Ditmar stopped, for lack of adequate
eloquence.

She smiled in the darkness at his boyish fervour,--one of the aspects of
the successful Ditmar, the Ditmar of great affairs, that appealed to her
most strongly. She was softened, touched; she felt, too, a responsive
thrill to such a desire as his. Yet she did not reply. She could not. She
was learning that emotion is never simple. And some inhibition, the
identity of which was temporarily obscured still persisted, pervading her
consciousness....

They were crossing the bridge at Stanley Street, now deserted, and by
common consent they paused in the middle of it, leaning on the rail. The
hideous chocolate factory on the point was concealed by the night,--only
the lights were there, trembling on the surface of the river. Against the
flushed sky above the city were silhouetted the high chimneys of the
power plant. Ditmar's shoulder touched hers. He was still pleading, but
she seemed rather to be listening to the symphony of the unseen waters
falling over the dam. His words were like that, suggestive of a torrent
into which she longed to fling herself, yet refrained, without knowing
why. Her hands tightened on the rail; suddenly she let it go, and led the
way toward the unfrequented district of the south side. It was the road
to Silliston, but she had forgotten that. Ditmar, regaining her side,
continued his pleading. He spoke of his loneliness, which he had never
realized. He needed her. And she experienced an answering pang. It still
seemed incredible that he, too, who had so much, should feel that gnawing
need for human sympathy and understanding that had so often made her
unhappy. And because of the response his need aroused in her she did not
reflect whether he could fulfil her own need, whether he could ever
understand her; whether, at any time, she could unreservedly pour herself
out to him.

"I don't see why you want me," she interrupted hi