He pulled up a chair beside the window-seat where she lay, and told her about Beatrice; told it in a way that did not make her seem offensive to Yetta. He told the story as truthfully as might be, without giving its real explanation--his heartbreak over Mabel. He did not want to bring this in. If Yetta had asked him point-blank how long it was since he had been in love with Mabel, he would not have tried to deceive her. But the telling of it would only distress her. "It may not sound to you like a pretty story," he ended. "I'm not proud of it. But I'm not exactly ashamed either. It's a sick sort of a world we live in. There are better days coming when the relations between men and women will be saner and sweeter--and finer. But I don't think more lightly of Beatrice because of this. She's a remarkable woman. Life has not been very kind to her. But she's fought her way to the place where she is through with pretence. That at least was fine about our friendship. We were not pretending. I haven't told it very well, perhaps I haven't made you understand. But I hope Beatrice can look back on it without being ashamed. I can." Although Yetta listened intently, she was all the time thinking not so much of Mrs. Karner as of what she typified--the unknown life of the man she loved, the things he had not told her. "Am I forgiven?" he asked, kneeling beside her and taking her hand. "Oh! Forgiven! That isn't it. Who am I to forgive you or blame you? It's that I don't understand. And when I don't understand, I'm afraid." "You mustn't be afraid of the past, darling." "I don't know about that. When it comes to love, I can't think of any past or present or future. It's just somehow eternally always and now and for ever and ever. I'm not sure we can get away from the past. I can't explain it very well, but some things are real and some aren't. I don't think I'll ever get rid of the real things which have come to me. They'll never die." "Well, don't worry about Beatrice,--that was only an interlude--not 'real.'" "And Mabel?" "A dream." "But some dreams are real," she insisted. "No dream in all the world, Yetta, is real like your lips." She wanted so much to be kissed, had been so frightened for a moment, that she sought his arms without questioning this statement. But a few minutes later the thought came to her suddenly that he had kissed Beatrice just as he was kissing her. He felt her wince. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Oh, I'm dizzy. Let me go a minute."