“Is it on account of Frankie?” he asked. She raised a miserable, tear-stained face and looked straight at him. “No!” she cried. “I--I _thought_ I was able--to give you up--but oh, I can’t!” “Give me up!” exclaimed the astonished Lionel. Her great black eyes, their long lashes wet and heavy with tears, were fixed upon his face with solemn intensity. “Yes!” she said, firmly. “But--exactly what----?” he stammered. “I don’t care if you do know it,” she said. He began to understand; he turned scarlet, he dared not look at her, and yet couldn’t take his eyes from her dark, desperate little face. Suddenly she stretched up her arms to him, like a child. “Oh, Lionel!” she cried, in such a pitiful voice that he couldn’t withstand her. She clung to him, sobbing, trembling, her head buried in his coat. “Oh, Lionel, I love you so!” He was immeasurably moved. He put an arm about her and very gently stroked her hair. “Don’t cry!” he said. “Poor little girl! Don’t cry!” To save his life he couldn’t have kept the least little trace of condescension out of his tone. He had never been made love to before; he felt that he hadn’t quite realised his own charm. He felt very, very kindly toward poor Minnie, unhappy victim to his fascination. An absolutely hopeless passion; she had to be made to see that, in the most humane way possible. He kept on patting her shoulder. “Lionel!” she said, looking up again with those really magnificent dark eyes, “Please--you won’t despise me, will you? I can’t--can’t help it! I never--in all my life----!” “Of course I don’t despise you! I think you’re a--I think you’re--a fine woman,” he said, ineptly. “Come now! Don’t cry, my dear girl! You’ll make yourself ill, you know.” As gently as possible he disengaged her clinging arms and made her sit down in the chair again, then he dipped a towel in cold water and wiped her swollen eyes. He had not as yet had time to realise the awkwardness of this affair; he was, to tell the truth, just a little elated. Supermanly. He talked to her soothingly until she had stopped crying, then: “It’s getting late,” he said, “we’d really better be----” She jumped up again, so violently that her dishevelled hair came down and fell over her shoulders. She seized him by the wrist. “I won’t go!” she cried. And caught him round the neck and strained him to her, kissing him wildly. But why try to tell of all that--the eternal wiles of a passionate woman? He had no weapon against her. He had his love for Frankie, but _this_ was not love. He had his ideas of honour, he was fastidious, he was, after a fashion, somewhat austere. But his safety, and the safety of all his sex--lay only in avoiding the irresistible. And of all the allurements in the world, there is none to compare with the abandon of the respectable woman. Poor devil! Poor devil! CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE I