"I thought our promise--my promise--would bind me. . . . It didn't. It won't. It can't." She withdrew her arm, then quickly seized both my hands in hers. "Oh, my boy, my friend, my chum!" she exclaimed, and little crystal wells gathered between her eyelids as she spoke. "How can I hurt you so! But nothing else would be honest. I have tried and failed. I lost my temper with you to-day, and once before, over Spoof. You were playing jokes on him--making him the butt of your humor--your idea of humor----" "I promise you nothing of that kind will ever happen again, dear; I promise it, I swear it!" "But that doesn't help, any. Don't you see, it's not that I care--so much--about the joke--on anybody--but because _I love Spoof_." I hope I took the blow like a gentleman. I had the advantage of being somewhat prepared for it. "I suspected that," I said at length. "I don't want to stand in the way of your happiness." Then I fell from the heroic with a thud. "Oh, Jean, Jean," I pleaded, "why do you turn to Spoof, whom you hardly know, and away from me? Have I fallen so far short--an I so little to be desired--that you should love a stranger in preference?" She pressed her hand against my lips. "Don't, please. . . . I can't explain. Ask me why the wind blows--why the flowers turn to the sunlight--I can't explain. I would ever so much rather it had been you." "Then make it me! It is in your hands----" "No, it is not. I can't change it. I have tried--and failed. Of course, I could marry you still, but you would not want me with a reservation in my heart. You would despise me if I married you like that." Beneath the numbing shock of the fact that Jean was slipping--had slipped--out of my life, I was conscious that her words were true. I should not have wanted her--with a reservation. And so we sat in silence and in suffering, with no sound about us except the ticking of the clock and the thumping of our own hearts, until at length Jean arose to rebuild the fire. I took it as my cue to leave. "Well, what is to be done about it?" I said, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact way, although I could not keep the tremble out of my voice. "We must clear up the situation some way." "Yes. We will explain, so far as it can be explained, to Jack and Marjorie. We must not interfere with their marriage or their happiness. And Spoof must not know." "Spoof not know! How shall we prevent----" "I mean he must not know why--why our marriage is post--is off. Don't you see, Frank; Spoof must not know--I love him." She whispered the last words and turned her head away, as though ashamed of her confession. "Not know you love him! Do you mean that Spoof doesn't know you love him?" "No, he doesn't, Frank." "And he has not made love to you?" "Not a word."