brown face was twitching.

"Suppose you had to choose between Jimmy and me!"

He was thinking of Robin and Rosamund. A child had conquered him once.
Now once again a child--for Jimmy was no more than a child as yet,
although he thought himself important and almost a young man--intruded
into his life with a woman.

"I shall not have to choose. But I have told you that a child is not
enough for the happiness of a woman like me. You know what I am, and you
must know I am speaking the truth."

"Did you love your husband?" he asked, staring into her eyes.

"Yes," she replied, without even a second of hesitation. "I did till he
suspected me."

"And then----"

"Not after that," she said grimly.

"I wonder he let you do all you did."

"What do you mean?"

She let his hand go.

"I would never have let you go about with other men, however innocently.
I thought about that at your trial."

"I should never let any one interfere with my freedom of action. If a
man loves me I expect him to trust me."

"You don't trust me."

"Sometimes you almost hate me. I know that."

"Sometimes I hate everybody, myself most of all. But I should miss you.
You are the only woman in all the world who wants me now."

Suddenly a thought of his mother intruded into his mind, and he added:

"Wants me as a lover."

She got up quickly, almost impulsively, and went close to him.

"Yes, I want you, I want you as a lover, and I can't let you go. That is
why I ask you, I beg you, to stay with me while Jimmy's here."

She leaned against him, and put her small hands on his shoulders.

"How can a child understand the needs of a woman like me and of a man
like you? How can he look into our hearts or read the secrets of our
natures--secrets which we can't help having? You hate what you call
deceiving him. But he will never think about it. A boy of Jimmy's age
never thinks about his mother in that way."

"I know. That's just it!"

"What do you mean?"

But he did not explain. Perhaps instinctively he felt that her natural
subtlety could not be in accord with his natural sincerity, felt that in
discussing certain subjects they talked in different languages. She put
her arms round his neck.

"I need the two lives," she said, in a very low voice. "I need Jimmy and
I need you. Is it so very wonderful? Often when a woman who isn't old
loses her husband and is left with her child people say, 'It's all
right for her. She has got her child.' An