ve. But see here, Peggy, you aren't holding that against me,
are you? It wouldn't be fair. I'd trust you with anything of my own; but
when it comes to other people's business--official business----"

"Did you ever hear the lines, 'Trust me not at all, or all in all?'" I
continued to torture him. "It was Tennyson who made Vivien say those
words to Merlin. She was deceiving him, and meant to ruin him when she'd
wormed out his secret; for that reason, it isn't a very appropriate
quotation. But, otherwise, it's particularly so. If you trusted me for
yourself, you'd trust me for others, too. It's the same thing--or else
it's nothing. I'm not like Vivien. I don't mean to deceive you, or ruin
you, or anything horrid. And I couldn't if I would!"

"You don't need to tell me that," said Tony, very miserable, and making
me miserable as well. "I know you're true blue--the truest and
bluest--but there are some things I've got no right to do, even for you,
Peggy. I'd cut my tongue out to please you, I do believe I would, but to
use it in a dishonourable way for your sake is dif----"

"There! I _told_ you you didn't love me!" I reproached him. "You accuse
me now of wanting you to do something dishonourable. I don't want you
to! I can't see that it would be dishonourable to put me out of suspense
about a dear friend like Captain March, a man who's in love with my
sister, and wants to marry her, as you surely know. But that settles
everything between us, of course. To be perfectly honest with you, Tony,
I must say that I'm not certain, even if you did what I have asked, that
I'd be able to do what _you_ ask--love you, except as a friend. I've
said before that I couldn't. But I might have changed my mind in future,
for all I know, if----"

"If!" echoed Tony. "That's a darned cruel way to put it!" And he looked
so much like the nicest Billiken ever seen on earth that I really did
love him, though not quite in the way he wanted.

"No doubt I am cruel as well as dishonourable," I replied frigidly. "So
now you can easily stop loving me, can't you?"

"No, I can't," he said. "See here, Peggy, what can I say or do to make
things right? I think you're the kindest and dearest and most honourable
girl whoever lived, and I----"

"Prove it then!" I cried. And I laid my hands on his.

"How? What can I do?"

"Tell me the whole truth about what happened last night. Oh--I'm not
trying to bribe you! I don't promise if you do tell, that I'll love