‘And your hopes of these things,’ her lips whitened as she repeated the words, ‘were madness? Singular contradiction! You have told me that yours has been a secluded student’s life, that, until a fortnight ago, you never cared for any society but that of men?’ ‘Whatever I have told you has been true,’ said Geff, with firmness. Then, instantly relenting, ‘Do not let us have a quarrel,’ he pleaded, ‘on this first day that we are sweethearts.’ She turned from him, indignant, breathless. ‘If we quarrel over realities, Mr. Arbuthnot, the pity is we did not look realities in the face before becoming sweethearts.’ ‘Miss Bartrand--Marjorie!’ ‘Oh, I am thoroughly in earnest. This morning, when first I knew you cared for me a little, I was open with you. I told you what had to be said about Major Tredennis, and you forgave me. Bluebeard secrets, bad always, must be doubly so between people who mean to spend their lives together. I told you of my miserable weakness----’ Her frank girlish face burned so hotly that Geff came to her relief. ‘You were very open with me, Marjorie, true and straightforward, as it is your nature to be.’ ‘I did not hide from you, whatever the shame of it, that I had bound myself once before.’ Geoffrey was no social diplomatist. He might, otherwise, with mournful veracity have retorted that he had been a free man always. But the statement would have implied a prevarication, and it was not in Geoffrey Arbuthnot’s upright soul to prevaricate. ‘You told me you had been engaged. You also gave an opinion as to its being impossible for people, honestly, to love twice.’ ‘Most certainly I did. I never cared more for Major Tredennis than I do for this flower I wear--ask Mrs. Arbuthnot! I found courage yesterday to talk to her about that wretched time--and I _do_ care for you,’ looking straight from her heart at her lover. ‘And it is utterly impossible for any woman or any man to love twice.’ ‘You think so? I ought to have disagreed with you at once,’ struck in Geff, promptly. ‘I ought to have told you this morning what I hold to be truth.’ ‘And this is?’ ‘That women and men may love a second time honestly, although once, only, with success.’ She turned away doubtfully, with lowered lids, hesitating a few moments. Then: ‘Love twice? and why not love three, four, five times?’ she questioned, looking up at him with a glance of fire. ‘Why hold at all by constancy, or honour, or good faith? What mystic limitation is there in the number two?’ ‘A woman troubled is Heaven’s fairest work spoiled.’ Geoffrey believed as devoutly as do most men in the aphorism. But Marjorie was not a woman, he remembered, only an impetuous girl, with Southern blood in her veins, with the Bartrand pride on her lips, with all sweet and modest and maidenly superstitions in her heart. He felt he had never loved her more dearly than in this very outburst of unreasoning, childish wrath against himself.