"Mollie," he blurted out, "you know how I hate beating about the bush. Let's be open with one another. Let's admit that something _has_ happened." He leaned forward in his chair, both hands on his knees. "But you aren't going to let that something make any difference, are you?" His method irritated her to abruptness. "You _are_ beating about the bush, Jimmy. Why not be straight?" "I'm trying to be straight." His hands clenched. "But it's jolly difficult. You see, there are some things that--well, that one doesn't discuss with girls." "Isn't that rather rot nowadays?" retorted Mollie, hating herself for the slang. "I don't think it's rot. I think there are a good many subjects a man doesn't want to discuss with--with a girl he--er--cares about." "Then he does care," thought Mollie; and felt her heart leap to the thought. Outwardly she made pretense of considering his sentence; her brows crinkled. Inwardly she pretended herself still vexed with him. She said to herself, "He mustn't see that I care. He must be taught his lesson." "You're a bit old-fashioned, aren't you, Jimmy?" she prevaricated at last. "Perhaps I am." Affection made him suddenly the schoolboy. "But it's devilish awkward, isn't it; this--this business about your sister?" "Awkward!" Mollie's loyalty stiffened her to discard prevarication. "I don't think it's awkward. _I_ think it's jolly rough luck on Aliette and Mr. Cavendish. Hector knows perfectly well they'd get married if he'd only set her free. I think Hector's a cad. Alie told him everything before she went. He knows jolly well she'll never go back to him. Why should she? A man doesn't own a woman for ever and ever just because he happens to marry her." The speech roused Jimmy to an unwonted height of imagination. He saw himself marrying Mollie, quarreling with Mollie; saw Mollie running away from him, as Aliette had run away from Hector. "So if _you_ married a man, you wouldn't consider yourself tied to him for life?" "Certainly not. Not if he didn't behave decently." The girl's eyes were brave enough, but a shiver of apprehension ran through her body. She thought: "He couldn't care for anybody who said that sort of thing to him." Jimmy seemed to be considering her statement, weighing it up. It came to her instinctively that they were at the crisis of their lives. "And if he behaved well to you?" The words seemed fraught with meaning. "Why, then"--she could feel herself shivering, shivering from the soles of her feet to the roots of her bobbed hair--"then--there wouldn't be any need for me to run away from him." Their eyes met; brown eyes searching violet. Their eyes lit with mutual understanding. Self-consciousness deserted her; deserted them both. She was conscious of him--close to her--seizing her hands--speaking rapidly, unrestrainedly: