r his kisses. She shrank
from giving pain, but she shrank still more from lowering herself in his
eyes, and the situation needed all her skill. Disengaging herself from
his arms, she faced him with what she felt to be a brave little smile.

"Ishmael! My poor boy; Ishmael!" she said.

He was suddenly very grave, but waited silently.

Still, he said nothing, and she took his hand in hers and spoke very
gently.

"Ishmael, dear one! listen to me. You must see that it's impossible,
that it would never do."

He did see it, her very certainty showed him plainly enough; but still
he fought against it, bringing forward every plea, and ending with what
was to him the great argument: "But if we love each other?"

"Of course love is very important, Ishmael," said Blanche, choosing her
words carefully; "but don't you see how important other things are too?
It's the externals that matter most in this life, Ishmael; see how they
matter to you, who have worked so hard to alter them."

"You can be clever about it," said Ishmael, a new look that was almost
suspicion glinting in his eyes; "I can't talk round a thing, but I know
things. I know I love you and would spend my life trying to make you
happy. You say you aren't happy in your own life."

"But how could I be happy without my friends and my own kind of people,
Ishmael?" asked Blanche reproachfully. She did not add that, being
incapable of loyalty, she had no real friends, but suddenly she saw it
as true, and staggered under the flood of self-pity that followed.
Losing Ishmael, she was indeed bereft, not only of him, but of her new
self, and with the worst of all pangs--loneliness--striking through her,
she laid her arms against the hedge and, hiding her face, burst into a
storm of tears. Ishmael stood by her silently; like most men, he was
inarticulate at the great moments, and Blanche sobbed on. She who for so
many years had made herself believe what she wished, had gagged and
blindfolded her own soul till truth showed its face to her in vain, was
now stripped of all bandages and having facts passed relentlessly before
her. She had made Ishmael love her, as she had so many men, by seeming
something she was not; she had fallen in love with Ishmael herself, and
must keep up the pretence of being the woman he thought her, for for her
real self such a man as Ishmael could have no comprehension. She told
herself that if they could only have married she would in time have
grown