eed,
without words, to break a lance in a flirtation. And that both lances
were splintered doesn't matter now. We had joy in the encounter,
didn't we, and more after each surrendered captive? But it has been
only mimic warfare. It has not been the real thing."

"Evidently not--to you! Unfortunately one forgets sometimes, and then
one is endangered."

He was troubled. He rose and came to her side, and put his hand upon
her head, the usually proudly carried head of a handsome woman, now
bowed in the effort to hide a face which told too much. "It is all
unfortunate. It is unfortunate that we met, if you care as you
profess. I had counted us as equal; that you were, with me, caring for
the day and never for the morrow, so far as we two were concerned."

She raised her face. "Do you love me?" she said.

He hesitated. "I am fond of you."

"Do you love me?"

"In the sense that I suppose you mean, no."

She did not look at him for a moment; then she rose swiftly to her feet
and looked squarely in his face.

"Is there some one else?"

He did not answer.

"Is there some one else?"

"Yes."

"Then it _is_ unfortunate, as you say--and for her."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I will not endure to be dropped by you as a child drops a
toy of which it is weary. I mean that I will not surrender you to some
new creature who has intervened! What does it matter that there has
been no pledge between us? You have made me love you! You know it!
The very being to each other what you and I have been is a pledge for
the future. Oh, Grant!"

The woman's eyes were full of tears, and her voice was a moan. The man
was suffering both shame and agony. He knew that, careless as he had
been, the relations had grown to imply a permanency. The woman was at
least justified in her claims that words are not always necessary to a
contract. What could he do? Then came the thought of Jean. One hair
of her brown head was more to him than this woman, or any other woman
he had ever known. He was decided.

"I am a brute, Ada," he said, "or, at least, I have to be brutal. We
do care for each other in a certain way, and we have found together
many of the good things in living, but we are not lovers in the greater
sense. We never could be. It means much. It means a knitting
together of lives, a oneness, a confluence of soul and heart and
passions, and a disposition to sacrifice, if need be. We have not been
that wa