"Look here!" he said persuasively. "Suppose that you were as poor a thing as I am; suppose that you, too, had come to look for no more from love than it means to me, and that some one came along who took you for an angel; a man young and strong and pure with the one great passion of a lifetime showing all over him; and that, in too weak or too kind a moment you had let him take you in his arms, and let him believe then as true the dreams that he had dreamt of you, and sealed with your kisses the vows which he had sworn. Well! when you'd come to realize that all his strength and sweetness hung on his belief in you, would you call it wicked and cruel to go on with the pretence?" She made no answer for some moments. The grip of her white fingers relaxed upon the couch and the fan hung quiet against her ankle as she continued to absorb him with her devouring eyes. "You've forgotten _me_," she whispered at length. "No," he protested; "you can't say that, can you? I told you at once." "Told me what?" she demanded. "That I was not free," he said. "Yes," she exclaimed, "the very first time you spoke to me. As if I were certain to lose my heart if I had not been warned. I hated you pretty hotly for it too, I can assure you. And you might have saved yourself the trouble. I'd been told it before." "Before?" "Yes, by Ethel Vernon. She said, when she heard I was to meet you, 'He's going to marry a girl that he doesn't care a sou for.' How did she know?" "She didn't know," he said. "How did she guess then? Had you been in love with her?" "Yes." "She with you?" "You forget," he said gravely: "she's a married woman." "I did forget," she smiled. "And was there no one you were in love with between her and me?" "I'm not in love with you," he said. She smiled again, drearily. "Does it do you any good to say that?" she asked. "No," he answered; "I said it for you." "For me?" she objected. "Yes," he replied; "you said I'd forgotten you." "Do you call that remembering?" she enquired ruefully. "Don't you?" he murmured. "Would I have said it for myself?" "Said what?" she asked. "That I'm not in love with you?" "I daresay," she said. "Even if it had not been true?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I daresay," she said. "Do you?" he smiled. "It's a good deal to dare." He drew a long unsteady breath. "Well," he sighed, "suppose it wasn't?" "Wasn't true?" she said.