Then dinner was over, and he and Jonquil were alone in the room which had seen the beginning of their love affair and the end. It seemed to him long ago and inexpressibly sad. On that sofa he had felt agony and grief such as he would never feel again. He would never be so weak or so tired and miserable and poor. Yet he knew that that boy of fifteen months before had had something, a trust, a warmth that was gone forever. The sensible thing--they had done the sensible thing. He had traded his first youth for strength and carved success out of despair. But with his youth, life had carried away the freshness of his love. "You won't marry me, will you?" he said quietly. Jonquil shook her dark head. "I'm never going to marry," she answered. He nodded. "I'm going on to Washington in the morning," he said. "Oh----" "I have to go. I've got to be in New York by the first, and meanwhile I want to stop off in Washington." "Business!" "No-o," he said as if reluctantly. "There's some one there I must see who was very kind to me when I was so--down and out." This was invented. There was no one in Washington for him to see--but he was watching Jonquil narrowly, and he was sure that she winced a little, that her eyes closed and then opened wide again. "But before I go I want to tell you the things that happened to me since I saw you, and, as maybe we won't meet again, I wonder if--if just this once you'd sit in my lap like you used to. I wouldn't ask except since there's no one else--yet--perhaps it doesn't matter." She nodded, and in a moment was sitting in his lap as she had sat so often in that vanished spring. The feel of her head against his shoulder, of her familiar body, sent a shock of emotion over him. His arms holding her had a tendency to tighten around her, so he leaned back and began to talk thoughtfully into the air. He told her of a despairing two weeks in New York which had terminated with an attractive if not very profitable job in a construction plant in Jersey City. When the Peru business had first presented itself it had not seemed an extraordinary opportunity. He was to be third assistant engineer on the expedition, but only ten of the American party, including eight rodmen and surveyors, had ever reached Cuzco. Ten days later the chief of the expedition was dead of yellow fever. That had been his chance, a chance for anybody but a fool, a marvellous chance---- "A chance for anybody but a fool?" she interrupted innocently. "Even for a fool," he continued. "It was wonderful. Well, I wired New York----" "And so," she interrupted again, "they wired that you ought to take a chance?" "Ought to!" he exclaimed, still leaning back. "That I _had_ to. There was no time to lose----" "Not a minute?" "Not a minute." "Not even time for--" she paused. "For what?" "Look." He bent his head forward suddenly, and she drew herself to him in the same moment, her lips half open like a flower.