Winifred, and, struggling with the lump in her throat, she
said, unsteadily: "I am not very well to-day; if you will leave me now,
and come perhaps some other time, you will oblige me."

Carshaw strode nearer and caught her shoulder.

"But what a tone to me! Have I done something wrong, I wonder? Winnie,
what is it?"

"I have told you I am not very well. I do not desire your
company--to-day."

"Whew! What majesty! It must be something outrageous. But what? Won't
you be dear and kind, and tell me?"

"You have done nothing."

"Yes, I have. I think I can guess. I spoke of Helen Tower yesterday as
of an old sweetheart--was that it? And it is all jealousy. Surely I
didn't say much. What on earth did I say? That she was like a
Gainsborough; that she was rather a beauty; that she was _elancee_ at
twenty-two. But I didn't mean any harm. Why, it's jealousy!"

At this Winifred drew herself up to discharge a thunderbolt, and though
she winced at the Olympian effort, managed to say distinctly:

"There can be no jealousy where there is no love."

Carshaw stood silent, momentarily stunned, like one before whom a
thunderbolt has really exploded. At last, looking at the pattern of a
frayed carpet, he said humbly enough:

"Well, then, I must be a very unfortunate sort of man, Winifred."

"Don't believe me!" Winifred wished to cry out. But the words were
checked on her white lips. The thought arose in her, "He that putteth
his hand to the plow and looketh back--"

"It is sudden, this truth that you tell me," went on Carshaw. "Is it a
truth?"

"Yes."

"You are not fond of me, Winnie?"

"I have a liking for you."

"That's all?"

"That is all."

"Don't say it, dear. I suffer."

"Do you? No, don't suffer. I--can't help myself."

"You are sorry for me, then?"

"Oh, yes."

"But how came I, then, to have the opposite impression so strongly? I
think--I can't help thinking--that it was your fault, dear. You made me
hope, perhaps without meaning me to, that--that life was to be happy for
me. When I entered that door just now no man in New York had a lighter
step than I, or a more careless heart. I shall go out of it--different,
dear. You should not have allowed me to think--what I did; and you
should not have told me the truth so--quite so--suddenly."

"Sit down. You are not fair to me. I did not know you cared--"

"You--you did not know that I cared? Come, that's not true, girl!"

"Not so much, I mean--not quite