"It was a drinking-place, and the girl with me had drunk too much. We amused your sister's theater-party immensely. They were probably slumming--seeing low life!" He drew a calmer account from her presently. "I know the place," he said. "It had rather a vogue before people found out that it was only sham-German, after all. It's a perfectly respectable rathskeller. You went with some gentleman, of course?" Jean's passion for confession flagged. "With a friend of Amy's from the boarding-house," she answered briefly. Atwood gave a relieved laugh. "You have made a mountain of a mole-hill," he told her; "but I'm glad you mentioned the circumstances. I'll explain to Julie, if she ever thinks of it again. Don't misjudge her, Jean. I admit she's unsympathetic at first sight, even brusque; but there's another side, believe me. You saw how devoted she is to my interests." She had indeed seen, and the knowledge rankled. "You should not have introduced me, made me share your talk," she said. "You meant a kindness, but it was no kindness; it was a humiliation, a--" Then the tension snapped and her head went down between her arms. "Kindness!" He swept her stormily to himself. "Kindness, Jean! Can't you see why I wanted you to share it with me? Can't you see that I want you to share everything? I love you, Jean." For a long moment she yielded; the next she had slipped from him and the escritoire was between them. "Don't," she forbade. "You must not say these things to me." "Must not?" "I can't marry you." "Can't! Yet a moment ago--" "I can't marry you," she repeated breathlessly. "But your kiss--" "Was a lie--pity--what you like. I was unstrung. I--I don't love you." He searched her face for a perplexed instant. "Jean," he commanded; "look at me!" She faced him. "Now tell me that again--straight in the eyes." "Don't," she entreated. "Say it!" "You heard me." "I want to hear it again--on your honor!" He waited. "I--I refuse." He strode toward her in triumph. "You can't," he cried. "The kiss was no lie. It was the truth, the sacred truth! What unselfish madness made you try to deceive me?" "Remember your career," she protested; "your sister's world, which is your world, too." But the time for reasoning was past. XXII What passed forthwith between brother and sister Jean neither heard nor particularly conjectured. Ways, means, and motives were for the time being eclipsed by the tremendous fact that Julie called. That she acquitted herself of this formality at an hour when the slightest possible knowledge of the girl's habits would argue her absence from Irving Place, roused in Jean only a vast relief. The mute pasteboard was itself sufficiently formidable.