y windless place.

"In my thoughts I always kept her apart from all other
women--always--for years and years, until one night in London, after I
knew you. That night--I don't know how it was, or why--I seemed to see
her and you standing together, looking at each other; I seemed to know
that in you both--I don't know how to tell it exactly"--he stopped,
looked down, like one thinking deeply, like one absorbed in
thought--"that in you both, mixed with quantities of different things,
there was one thing--a beautiful thing--that was the same. She--she
seemed that night to tell me that you had something I had loved in her,
that it was covered up out of sight, that you were afraid to show it,
that nobody believed you had it within you. She seemed to tell me that I
might teach you to trust me and show it to me. That night I think I
began to love you. I didn't know I should ever tell this to any one,
even to you. Do you think I could tell it if I distrusted you as much as
you seem to think?"

"Give me a glass of Apollinaris, will you, Nigel?" she said. "It's over
there beside the bed."

"Apollinaris!"

He stared at her as if confused by this sudden diversion.

"Over there!"

She pointed. The long sleeve, like a wing, fell away from her soft,
white arm.

"Oh--all right."

He went to get it. She sat still, looking out through the open window to
the moonlight that lay on the white stone of the balcony floor. She
heard the chink of glass, the thin gurgle of liquid falling. Then he
came back and stood beside her.

"Here it is, Ruby."

The enthusiasm had gone out of his voice, and the curious light had gone
out of his eyes.

"Thank you."

She took it, put it to her lips, and drank. Then she set the glass down
on the writing-table.

"We're at the beginning of things, Nigel," she said. "That's the truth.
We can't jump into a mutual perfection of relationship at once. I've got
very few illusions, and I dare say I'm absurdly sensitive about certain
matters, much more sensitive than even you can imagine. The fact is
I've--I've been trodden on for a long while. A man can't know what a
woman--a lady--who's been thoroughly 'in it' feels when she's put
outside, and kept outside, and--trodden on. It sends her running to
throw her arms round the neck of the Devil. That may be abominable, but
it's the fact. And, when she tries to come back from the Devil--well,
she's a mass of nerves, and ready to start at a shadow. I saw a sh