" she besought him, "for I don't."

He gave her a look. "That's beautiful of you, but"--and he turned to the
window again and spoke to himself--"it puts an awful face on my
business. All along you've made me think for you, and of you, more than
you deserve, more than I can afford." The stare she gave this forced out
of him a reluctant smile. "Why, didn't you know it? Do you think I
couldn't have had the sapphire that first night I saw it on your hand,
if it hadn't been--well, for the way I thought of you? I fancied you
knew that then." He made a restless movement. His arm fell from her
shoulder. "There's been only one thing to do from the first," he said,
"and I don't see my way to it."

"Oh, don't take it! Leave it!" she pleaded. "Leave it with me! What does
it matter so much? A jewel! If only you would leave it and go away from
me!"

He whirled on her. "In Heaven's name, a fine piece of logic! Leave the
sapphire to people who can make no better use of it than I? Leave you to
go on with this business and marry this Cressy? Even suppose you gave me
the sapphire, I couldn't let you do that!"

"If I gave you the sapphire," Flora said, "oh, he wouldn't marry me
then!" She couldn't tell how this had come to her, but all at once it
was clear, like a sign of her complete failure; but Kerr only wondered
at her distress.

"Well, if you don't want to marry him, what do you care?"

"Oh, I don't, I don't care for that." She sank back listlessly in her
chair again. She couldn't explain, but in her own mind she knew that if
she lost the sapphire she would so lose in her own esteem; so fail at
every point that counted, that she would never be able to see or be seen
in the world again as the same creature. Even to Kerr--even to him to
whom she would have yielded she would have become a different thing. She
realized now she had staked everything on the premise that she wouldn't
have to yield; and now it began to appear to her that she would. His
weakness was appearing now as a terrible strength, a strength that
seemed on the point of crushing her, but it could never convince her.
That strength of his had brought her here. Was it to happen here, that
strange thing she had foreseen, the end of her? Was it here she was to
lose the sapphire, and him?

She looked vaguely around the room, at the most impassive aspect of the
place, as at a place she never expected to leave; the darkening
windows, the fast-shut door, the child leaning