"Don't talk like that, child," he said, harshly. And the hand she had held out to him appealingly fell down limply at her side. "I can't expect you to think anything of me, after what I have just said to you," she went on in the same hopeless voice. "Girls are never supposed to tell those things, are they? It doesn't seem to me to matter much, now that it has all got to stop, for always. I only wish--I wish it had stopped before. I--I am going now, Paul." Although she turned away from him, she still half expected him to come and comfort her. For a couple of seconds she stood quite still, possessed with a terrible longing to be comforted by him. But he sat motionless and silent on the table; even his foot had ceased swinging. She walked unsteadily to the door. "Stop," said Paul. "You cannot go out in this storm." A peal of thunder broke over the house as he spoke. She had not noticed the rain until then. "I must go," she said dully, and fumbled at the fastening of the door. Paul came and took her by the arm, and led her back gently. "I want to explain, first," he said. "There is nothing to explain," said Katharine. "I understand." "Not quite, I think," said Paul. They were standing together by the table, and he was nervously caressing the hand he held between his own. "You have only been talking from your own point of view; you have forgotten mine altogether. You do not seem to think that I, too, may have had something to suffer." "You? But you do not care--as I do." He did not heed the interruption. "It is the system that is at fault," he said. "A man has to get on at the sacrifice of his happiness; or he has to be happy at the sacrifice of his position. It is difficult for a woman to realise this. She never has to choose between love and ambition." "And you have chosen--ambition," said Katharine bitterly. "My child, when you are older you will understand that the very qualities you affect to despise in man now, are the qualities that endear him to you in reality. You are far too fine a woman, Katharine, to love a man who has no ambition. Is it not so?" She quivered, and lowered her eyes. "I don't know," she said. "It seems so hard." "It is terribly hard for both of us," continued Paul, looking down too. "But believe me, there would be nothing but unhappiness before us if it were otherwise. I am thinking of you, child, as much as of myself. Marriage for love alone is a ghastly mistake. There, I have said more to you than I have ever said to any woman; I felt you would understand, Katharine." He mistook her silence for indifference, and put his arms round her. But she clung to him closely, and lifted her face to his and broke out into a desperate appeal.