"You do! You know it in your own heart. You know that it is a straight, clean, ardent friendship that inspires me and--" she looked up, serious, and very quiet. --"You know," he continued impulsively, "that it is not only your beauty, your loveliness and grace and that inexplicable charm you seem to radiate, that brings me to seek you every time that I have a moment to do so. "Why, if it were that alone, it would all have been merely a matter of sentiment. Have I ever been sentimental with you?" "No." "Have I ever made love to you?" She did not reply. Her eyes were fixed on her glass. "Have I, Athalie?" he repeated. "No, Clive," she said gently. "Well then; is there not on my part a very deep, solidly founded, and vital friendship for you? Is there not a--" "Don't let's talk about it," she interrupted in a low voice. "You always make me very happy; you say I please you--interest and amuse you. That is enough--more than enough--more than I ever hoped or asked--" "I said you make me happy;--happier than I have ever been," he explained with emphasis. "Do you suppose for a moment that your regard for me is warmer, deeper, more enduring, than is mine for you? Do you, Athalie?" She lifted her eyes to his. But she had nothing more to say on the subject. However, he began to insist,--a little impatiently,--on a direct answer. And finally she said: "Clive, you came into a rather empty life when you came into mine. Judge how completely you have filled it.... And what it would be if you went out of it. Your own life has always been full. If I should disappear from it--" she ceased. The quiet, accentless, almost listless dignity of the words surprised and impressed him for a moment; then the reaction came in a faint glow through every vein and a sudden impulse to respond to her with an assurance of devotion a little out of key with the somewhat stately and reserved measure of their duet called friendship. "You also fill my life," he said. "You give me what I never had--an intimacy and an understanding that satisfies. Had I my way I would be with you all the time. No other woman interests me as you do. There _is_ no other woman." "Oh, Clive! And all the charming people you know--" "I know many. None like you, Athalie." "That is very sweet of you.... I'm trying to believe it.... I want to.... There are many days to fill in when I am not with you. To fill them with such a belief would be to shorten them.... I don't know. I often wonder where you are; what you are doing; with what stately and beautiful creature you are talking, laughing, walking, dancing."--She shrugged her shoulders and gazed down at the dancers below. "The days are very long, sometimes," she added, half to herself. When again, calmly, she turned to him there was an odd expression on his face, and the next second he reddened and shifted his gaze. Neither spoke for a few moments.