Then, too, I had a great deal of Cantyre’s company. He spent most of the summer in town; chiefly because of his patients, but partly from a lack of incentive in going away. He explained that lack of incentive to me during one of the spins in his runabout to which he treated me on three or four evenings a week. Now and then I worked Lovey off on him for an outing, but he, Cantyre, was generally a little peevish after such occasions. It was not that he objected to giving Lovey or any one else the air; it was that he suspected me of not really caring to go out with him. There are always men—very good fellows, too—in whom there is this strain of the jealousy of school-girls. On this particular evening I had been kidding him about his depression, doing my best to rouse him out of it. “Oh, I’ll pull round in time,” he said, in his resigned, lifeless tone. “If you knew the reason—” I did know the reason, of course. My conscience never ceased to plague me with the fact that, though I could return Regina Barry’s trinkets, Cantyre’s secret was a theft I couldn’t get rid of. It was, indeed, partly to lead him on to confiding it to me of his own accord, so that I might know it legitimately, so to speak, that I brought the subject up. “I suppose it’s about a girl.” So long a time passed that I thought he was not going to respond to this challenge, when he said, “Yes.” “Wouldn’t she have you?” I asked, bluntly. “She said she would—and changed her mind.” “So that you were actually engaged?” “For about a month.” “Did she— You don’t mind my asking questions, do you?” “Not if you won’t mind if I don’t answer.” “Then with that proviso I’ll go on. Did she tell why she—why she broke it off?” “Not—not exactly.” “And haven’t you found out?” “Elsie Coningsby, she’s her great friend, told me something of it. She said there were two kinds of women. Some liked to be wooed, and others weren’t satisfied unless they were conquered.” “And you took the wrong method?” “So it seems.” “Well, why don’t you turn round now and take the right one?” His dreamy, melancholy eyes slid toward me. “Do you see me doing that? I’m the kind of bloke that would like a woman to conquer him. If it comes to that, there are two kinds of men.” He had told me so much that I felt it right to give him a warning. “Since you say she’s a friend of Elsie Coningsby’s, I mayn’t be able to help finding out who she is.” “Oh, I shouldn’t mind that—not with you. As a matter of fact, I should like to introduce you to her one of these days.” I broke in more hastily than I intended, “No, no; don’t do that—for God’s sake!” He swung round in amazement. “Why—why, what’s the matter?” I tried to recover myself. “Oh, nothing! Only, you must see for yourself that—that after what I’ve been through I’m not—not a lady’s man.” “Oh, get out!” was his only observation. We lapsed into one of our long silences, which was broken when we turned back toward town.