arried. The handkerchief in her lap was being rolled unconsciously into
a tight little ball. "The fact itself is sufficient."

Ben's free hand closed on the chair-arm with a mighty grip. "I beg your
pardon," he said, "but I cannot agree with you. There's a certain amount
of courtesy due between a woman and a man, as there is between man and
man. It is my right to repeat the question."

The girl felt the cord drawing tighter, felt that in the end she would
bend to his will.

"And should I refuse?" she asked.

"You won't refuse."

The girl's eyes returned to his. Even now she wondered that they did so,
that try as she might she could not deny him. His dominance over her was
well-nigh absolute. Yet she was not angry. An instinct that she had felt
before possessed her; the longing of the weaker for the stronger--the
impulse to give him what he wished. Her whole womanhood went out to him,
with an entire confidence that she would never give to another human
being. Naturally, he was her mate; naturally,--but she was not natural.
She hesitated as she had done once before, a multitude of conflicting
desires and ambitions seething in her brain. If she could but eliminate
the artificial in her nature, the desire for the empty things of the
world, then--But she could not yet give them up, and he could never be
made to care for them with her. She was nearer now to giving them up, to
giving up everything for his sake, than when she had sat alone with him
out on the prairie. She realized this with an added complexity of
emotion; but even yet, even yet--

A minute passed in silence, a minute of which the girl was unconscious.
It was Ben Blair's voice repeating his first question that recalled her.
This time she did not hesitate.

"I think you know the reason as well as I do. If we were mere friends or
acquaintances I would be only too glad to see you; but we are not, and
never can be merely friends. We have got to be either more or less." The
voice, brave so far, dropped. A mist came over the brown eyes. "And we
can't be more," she added.

The man's grip on the chair-arm loosened. He bent his face farther
forward. "Miss Baker," he exclaimed. "Florence!"

Interrupting, almost imploring, the girl drew back. "Don't! Please
don't!" she pleaded; then, as she saw the futility of words, with the
old girlish motion her face dropped into her hands. "Oh, I knew it would
mean this if I saw you!" she wailed. "You see for yourself we cann