deliberation, because every nerve in his body was
singing its song of fear like a banjo string, Coulter closed the album.
The honeymoon, if that was the right term for it, was over. He knew now
which was the dream, which the reality.

He said, "All of this is your doing, Eve." It was not a question.

She said quietly, "That's right, Banning, it's my doing." She looked at
him with a cool detachment that added to his bewilderment--and to his
fright.

He said, "Why, Eve? _Why_ have you done this?"

She said, "Banning, do you know what a Jane Austen villain is?"

He shook his head. "Hardly my pitch, is it?"

"Hardly." There was a trace of sadness in her voice. Then, "A Jane
Austen villain is an attractive, powerful, good-natured male who rides
through life roughshod, interested only in himself, completely unaware
of his effect on those unlucky souls whose existences become entangled
in his."

"And I am a Jane Austen villain?" He was puzzled, disturbed that
anyone--Eve or anyone--should think of him as a villain. Mentally he
began to search for kindnesses, for unselfishnesses. He found
generosities, yes, but these, he supposed with sudden dreadful clarity,
had been little more than balm to his ego.

"You are perhaps a classic example, Banning," she told him. Her face, in
shadow, was exquisitely beautiful. "When you left Lincolnville twenty
years ago, without seeing me, without letting me see you, you destroyed
me."

"Good God!" Coulter exclaimed. "But how? I know it was rude, but I did
mean to come back. And when things moved differently it seemed better to
keep a clean break clean." He hesitated, added, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry that you destroyed me?" Her tone was acid-etched.

"Dammit, do you want me down on my knees?" he countered. "How the devil
did my leaving destroy _you_?" Anger, prodded by fear, was warming his
blood.

"I was sensitive--aware of the collapse of my family, of my own
shortcomings, of my lack of opportunity," she said, staring with immense
grey eyes at the wall behind him. "I was just beginning to feel I could
be somebody, could mean something to someone I--liked--when you dropped
me and never looked back.

"I took a job at the bank. For twenty years I've sat in a cage, counting
out money and putting little legends in bank-books. I've felt myself
drying up day by day, week by week, year by year. When I've sought love
I've merely defiled myself. You taught me passion, Banning, then
destroye