"I did. I always did, Henry. Only we were--so near, so much a part of each other--like cousins. I called it friendship instead of love," cried Clara, warmly. "What difference does it make what you call it? Two people like to be together, seem to fit into one another's lives, isn't that love?" Clara smiled. "It's not the kind of love that Polly Street will give the man she marries," she said. "You know that as well as I. And it's not a matter of years, it's temperament. An actress told me once that when it came to a question of comparison between her married life and her stage life, she could say instantly that it was her stage life that had meant the most to her. She was happily married, too. I'm a bit like her. I can get more downright exaltation over my music when it goes right than I ever got out of any love affair. I think my talent is for friendship rather than for love." "Clara," Hard's voice shook, "I tell you, you wrong yourself. Neither you nor that woman were happily married if--oh, I don't want to be maudlin----" "Bless your heart, Henry, you couldn't be, any more than I could. Perhaps it's the New England conscience----" "I haven't a New England conscience," replied Hard. "My conscience is as elastic and pleasantly disposed as an Irishman's. Bunker Hill casts no blight upon me." "Henry, this is all very nice; but I'm dying of hunger." "Will you be afraid to stay here if I go back to Casa Grande and fetch you something?" "Wild horses couldn't hold me in this God-forsaken spot without you, Henry! Don't think of it. I--I'll go with you, though." "You can't walk it." "Then I'll die on the road. But how about your knee?" She stopped in discouragement. "What's a knee or two when you're starving to death?" demanded Hard, with decision. "Come on, let's start before I get any stiffer." They started out again, through the half darkness; walking slowly, for Hard limped painfully. He had helped himself to a stout staff which he found on the Soria veranda and which gave him some assistance. They were very silent; Hard, because his mind was still running on Clara's words, Clara, because she was honestly puzzled over the situation, and her own feelings. She watched the tall, thin figure, limping along by her side, and again the old memories came back, as they had the night before in the darkness; memories of the days when he and she had played at love. "I wasn't in love with him, and yet, seeing him again, after all these years, it seems as though I must have been," she thought, gently. "It's friendship, and yet it's more than friendship. It's going to hurt dreadfully to go away again."