"Make it so!" she broke out. "Really, Jeff, you talk like--a man! 'Make it so!'... If you can't see your little definite reason for everything, you deny the fact! If I could say that Kitty Windus and Miriam Levey had been chattering--I'm not aware that they have, but if I _could_ say that--I suppose you'd call that a reason, and listen to it; but anything else--pshaw! I don't care a button for your reason! Your reason may have made this business, but it won't persuade a woman against something she knows--myself _or_ Evie. It just is so, and there's an end of it. And of course you see the beautiful new fix it puts you in." She gave a little stamp that made her garments quiver. "Louie, I can't----" "Oh, a perfect fix! Really, I'm curious to know what you're going to do about it! Try to persuade her that there's nothing between you and me! Try it, try it! Why, how shouldn't she be jealous when I am? Do you think she doesn't see that? Oh, I don't know why I waste words with you!... But you see your fix. It was Kitty before, and you tried half telling then; now it's me; but it isn't either of us really; oh, if it only could be!... It's the secret, Jim. You've got to tell her--and you can't. I don't know what this is about a shock, but it's too late now. Try it if you like--I don't care what you say about me. Try the half truth again--give her reason--the reason's yours whenever you want it." Of course I couldn't listen to this nonsense and immodesty and worse. Who should know better whether Evie was jealous or not, Louie or I? Evie jealous!... Of course, if it were so, the position _would_ be precisely as Louie had stated it. I _should_ have to choose between Evie's love and the risk the doctor had so gravely foreshadowed. Our very existence together _would_ hang on precisely that last desperate chance. And from the bottom of my heart I blessed my Maker that, tossed and buffeted as my life had been, at least that perfected anguish of body and spirit was to be spared me.... I had risen. Smiling rather sadly, I turned to Louie. "Well--as I said--I don't want to re-open things," I said. With the door already half open, she turned. "Do you think they're closed?" she said. And she did not wait for my reply. FOOTNOTE: [2] See "In Accordance with the Evidence." II It is as I feared: this writing, as a continuous record, will have to stop. My life is getting too full. I daresay its crowded outward happenings are a good thing for me; it is better, as the saying is, to wear out than to rust out; and I am beginning almost to enjoy change for change's sake.