o me--without meaning to, I know!
It began that day at Lakelands; I fell in love with you the very first
minute I set eyes on you! There's a confession for a woman to make! and
a married woman! I'm married, and I no more feel allegiance, as they
call it, than if there never had been a ceremony and no Jacob Blathenoy
was in existence. And why I should go to him! But you shan't be
troubled. I did not begin to live, as a woman, before I met you. I can
speak all this to you because--we women can't be deceived in that--you
are one of the men who can be counted on for a friend.'

'I hope so,' Dartrey said, and his mouth hardened as nature's
electricity shot sparks into him from the touch and rocked him.

'No, not yet: I will soon let it drop,' said she, and she was just then
thrillingly pretty; she caressed the hand, placing it at her throat and
moving her chin on it, as women fondle birds. 'I am positively to go,
then?'

'Positively, you are to go; and it's my command.'

'Not in love with any one at all?'

'Not with a soul.'

'Not with a woman?'

'With no woman.'

'Nor maid?'

'No! and no to everything. And an end to the catechism!'

'It is really a flint that beats here?' she said, and with a shyness
in adventurousness, she struck the point of her forefinger on the rib.
'Fancy me in love with a flint! And running to be dutiful to a Jacob
Blathenoy, at my flint's command. I'm half in love with doing what I
hate, because this cold thing here bids me do it. I believe I married
for money, and now it looks as if I were to have my bargain with poverty
to bless it.'

'There I may help,' said Dartrey, relieved at sight of a loophole, to
spring to some initiative out of the paralysis cast on him by a pretty
little woman's rending of her veil. A man of honour alone with a woman
who has tossed concealment to the winds, is a riddled target indeed:
he is tempted to the peril of cajoleing, that he may escape from the
torment and the ridicule; he is tempted to sigh for the gallant spirit
of his naughty adolescence. 'Come to me--will you?--apply to me, if
there's ever any need. I happen to have money. And forgive me for naming
it.'

She groaned: 'Don't! I'm, sure, and I thought it from the first, you're
one of the good men, and the woman who meets you is lucky, and wretched,
and so she ought to be! Only to you should I!... do believe that! I
won't speak of what excuses I've got. You've seen.'

'Don't think of them: there'