He had just promised Moldini
and was cursing himself as 'weak and soft.' But that means nothing.
You may be sure he did it because Moldini convinced him it was a good
speculation."

She was radiant. She had not vanity enough where he was concerned to
believe that he deeply cared, that her joy would give him pain because
it meant forgetfulness of him. Nor was she much impressed by the
expression of his eyes. And even as she hurt him, she made him love
her the more; for he appreciated how rare was the woman who, in such
circumstances, does not feed her vanity with pity for the poor man
suffering so horribly because he is not to get her precious self.

It flashed upon her why he had not offered to help her. "There isn't
anybody like you," said she, with no explanation of her apparent
irrelevancy.

"Don't let Moldini see that you know," said he, with characteristic
fine thoughtfulness for others in the midst of his own unhappiness. "It
would deprive him of a great pleasure."

He was about to go. Suddenly her eyes filled and, opening the outer
door, she drew him in. "Donald," she said, "I love you. Take me in
your arms and make me behave."

He looked past her; his arms hung at his sides. Said he: "And
to-night I'd get a note by messenger saying that you had taken it all
back. No, the girl in the photograph--that was you. She wasn't made
to be MY wife. Or I to be her husband. I love you because you are
what you are. I should not love you if you were the ordinary woman,
the sort who marries and merges. But I'm old enough to spare
myself--and you--the consequences of what it would mean if we were
anything but strangers to each other."

"Yes, you must keep away--altogether. If you didn't, I'd be neither
the one thing nor the other, but just a poor failure."

"You'll not fail," said he. "I know it. It's written in your face."
He looked at her. She was not looking at him, but with eyes gazing
straight ahead was revealing that latent, inexplicable power which,
when it appeared at the surface, so strongly dominated and subordinated
her beauty and her sex. He shut his teeth together hard and glanced
away.

"You will not fail," he repeated bitterly. "And that's the worst of
it."

Without another word, without a handshake, he went. And she knew that,
except by chance, he would never see her again--or she him.

Moldini, disheveled and hysterical with delight and suspense, was in
the drawing-room--had