leg may be only
sprained. Then there's the cut--I daresay that isn't very much--but one
can't tell that."

"I must have come an awful mucker," Gerda murmured, after a pause. "It
must have looked silly, charging over the edge like that.... You didn't."

"No. I didn't."

"It was stupid," Gerda breathed, and shut her eyes.

"No, not stupid. Anyone might have. It was a risky game to try."

"You tried it."

"Oh, I ... I do try things. That's no reason why you should.... You'd
better not talk. Lie quite quiet. It won't be very long now before they
come.... The pain's bad, I know."

Gerda's head was hot and felt giddy. She moved it restlessly. Urgent
thoughts pestered her; her normal reticences lay like broken fences about
her.

"Nan."

"Yes. Shall I raise your head a little?"

"No, it's all right.... About Barry, Nan."

Nan grew rigid, strung up to endure.

"And what about Barry?"

"Just that I love him. I love him very much; beyond anything in the
world."

"Yes. You'd better not talk, all the same."

"Nan, do you love him too?"

Nan laughed, a queer little curt laugh in her throat.

"Rather a personal question, don't you think? Suppose, by any chance that
I did? But of course I don't."

"But doesn't he love you, Nan? He did, didn't he?"

"My dear, I think you're rather delirious. This isn't the way one
talks.... You'd better ask Barry the state of his affections, since
you're interested in them. I'm not, particularly."

Gerda drew a long breath, of pain or fatigue or relief.

"I'm rather glad you don't care for him. I thought we might have shared
him if you had, and if he'd cared for us both. But it might have been
difficult."

"It might; you never know.... Well, you're welcome to my share, if you
want it."

Then Gerda lay quiet, with closed eyes and wet forehead, and concentrated
wholly on her right leg, which was hurting badly.

Nan too sat quiet, and she too was concentrating.

Irrevocably it was over now; done, finished with. Barry's eyes, Barry's
kiss, had told her that. Gerda, the lovely, the selfish child, had taken
Barry from her, to keep for always. Walked into Barry's office, into
Barry's life, and deliberately stolen him. Thinking, she said, that they
might share him.... The little fool. The little thief. (She waved the
flies away from Gerda's head.)

And even this other game, this contest of physical prowess, had ended in
a hollow, mocking victory for the winner, since defeat h