“Haven’t you been engaged to—engaged to—or as good as engaged to—or, at least, in love with Blair Cary for years?” Steve gazed at him for a moment with a puzzled look on his face, which gave place the next instant to one of inexpressible amusement, and then, with a shove which sent Jacquelin spinning across the room, flung himself into his chair and burst into a ringing laugh. “You fool! you blamed fool!” he exclaimed. “But I’m a fool, too,” he said, standing and facing Jacquelin. “I think you are.” Jacquelin was still grave. “Why, Blair knows it.” “Knows what?” “Knows that I’m in love with Ruth Welch. She divined it long ago and has been my confidante.” “What!—Steve!—” The expression on Jacquelin’s face underwent a dozen changes in as many seconds. Astonishment, incredulity, memory, reflection, regret, hope—all were there, chasing each other and tumbling over one another in wild confusion. “Steve,” he began again in hopeless amazement, with a tone almost of entreaty, but stopped short. “You double-dyed, blind idiot!” exclaimed Steve, “Don’t you know that Blair Cary don’t care a button for me? never has cared and never will care but for one man——?” “Middleton!” Jacquelin turned away with a fierce gesture. “No, you jealous fool!” “Then, in Heaven’s name, who is it?” Jacquelin again faced him. “A blind idiot.” The effect was not what Steve had anticipated. Jacquelin made a wild gesture of dissent, turned his back, and, walking to the window, put his forearm against the sash, and leaned his forehead on it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, bitterly. “She hates me. She treats me like——She has always done it since that cursed Middleton——” “I don’t say she hasn’t. I simply say she——” Steve broke off. “She ought to have treated you badly. You made a fool of yourself, and have been a fool ever since. But I know she cared for you—before that, and if you had gone about it in the right way, you’d have won her.” (Jacquelin groaned.) “Instead of that, you must get on a high horse and put on your high and mighty airs and try to hector a spirited girl like Blair Cary.” (A groan from the window.) “Why, if I were to treat my horse as you did her, he’d break my neck.” “Oh, Steve!” “And then after she had tried to prove it to you, for you to go and put it on another’s account, of course she kicked—and she ought to have done so, and has treated you coldly ever since.” Jacquelin faced him. “Steve, I loved her so. I have loved her ever since I was a boy—ever since that day I made her jump off the barn. It was what kept me alive in prison many a time when otherwise I’d have gone. And when I came home, ready to go down on my knees to her—to die for her, to find her given to another, or, if not——” He stopped and turned away again. “Then why didn’t you tell her so, instead of outraging her feelings?” demanded Steve.