don't want you to give me anything."

"But I cannot help it, neither can you."

"I have killed a man's love before this," she answered bitterly.

"But you cannot kill mine. I love you, whether you love me or not. I am
proud to acknowledge my unreturned love."

"As you please." Claire stopped suddenly. "Are we apt to get anywhere
with this subject?" she asked ironically.

"I don't know. I earnestly hope so."

She looked at Philip thoughtfully. Perhaps the truth about her own
weakness might cure him.

"Suppose I allowed you to love me, and you found that you had won a
woman whose passions were her whole life. Suppose she should prove to be
a mere bundle of sex, all polished over with other people's ideas, a
social manner, and a set of morals which she did not really feel, which
were deceiving ornaments hiding her soul. What would you think of your
prize?"

"I should not love such a woman. I could not."

"But suppose you were deceived and thought her other than she was."

"I hardly expect such a thing to happen. Why suppose?"

"Because if I were your wife you might find it to be true."

Philip laughed aloud. "Claire, how preposterous! Are you trying to kill
my love for you with such terrifying pictures of depravity?"

"I wasn't trying to do anything. I just wanted to know."

"Have you been answered?"

"Yes, you are like all of your type; you are in love with what your own
desire chooses as an ideal, and then you shout, 'Behold, I am not a
sensual lover!'"

He stared at her in amazement. "What sort of a thing do you think I am?"

She laughed carelessly. "A man. And what do you think I am?"

"A very strange woman, but a dear one," he said earnestly.

"Why strange, Philip?"

"Because you talk of love as Lawrence might."

She winced. "He would know," she said. "He does know, perhaps." She was
talking to herself, and her voice was pathetic.

Philip's eyes grew fierce with anger. "What do you mean?"

"Not what your very ideal mind thinks," she said coldly.

He flamed scarlet, and looked away. "Claire," he said softly, "will you
never have done stirring up suspicions no man could avoid, and then
condemning them?"

"I didn't stir them up," she mocked.

"Who did, then?"

Claire was undergoing a developing reconstruction, but that she did not
know. She thought she was degenerating, and the immediate result was to
make her careless and ironical.

"Oh, the devil, perhaps," she hazarded.

"What are