to be gone such a very
long time."

He turned one of the ornaments on the mantel with his fingers, and
looked at it curiously. "It depends," he said, slowly--"it depends on
so many things. No," he went on, looking at her; "it does not depend
on many things; just on one."

Miss Cuyler looked up at him questioningly, and then down again very
quickly, and reached meaninglessly for the book beside her. She saw
something in his face and in the rigidity of his position that made
her breathe more rapidly. She had not been afraid of this from him,
because she had always taken the attitude towards him of a very dear
friend and of one who was older, not in years, but in experience of
the world, for she had lived abroad while he had gone from the
university to the West, which he had made his own, in books. They were
both very young.

She did not want him to say anything. She could only answer him in one
way, and in a way that would hurt and give pain to them both. She had
hoped he could remain just as he was, a very dear friend, with a
suggestion sometimes in the background of his becoming something more.
She was, of course, too experienced to believe in a long platonic
friendship.

Uppermost in her mind was the thought that, no matter what he urged,
she must remember that she wanted to be free, to live her own life, to
fill her own sphere of usefulness, and she must not let him tempt her
to forget this. She had next to consider him, and that she must be
hard and keep him from speaking at all; and this was very difficult,
for she cared for him very dearly. She strengthened her determination
by thinking of his going away, and of how glad she would be when he
had gone that she had committed herself to nothing. This absence would
be a test for both of them; it could not have been better had it been
arranged on purpose. She had ideas of what she could best do for those
around her, and she must not be controlled and curbed, no matter how
strongly she might think she wished it. She must not give way to the
temptation of the moment, or to a passing mood. And then there were
other men. She had their photographs on her dressing-table, and liked
each for some qualities the others did not possess in such a degree;
but she liked them all because no one of them had the right to say
"must" or even "you might" to her, and she fancied that the moment she
gave one of them this right she would hate him cordially, and would
fly to the others