"Why are you indifferent? Why are—are you unkind?" she stammered. "I’ve just found you again after all these years, haven’t I? What do other people matter to us? Why should Oswald interfere between you and me? You and I haven’t had each other for years! I—I can’t stand it—to have you unkind—indifferent—to have you leave me this way when I want you—so desperately——" "I didn’t leave you," he retorted sullenly. "You went away with—the man you married——" "Don’t speak of him that way!" she interrupted hotly. "Nobody speaks of that affair at all!" "Why not? You _did_ marry him, didn’t you?" "What of it!" she flamed back. "What has that to do with you and me! _Why_ do you refer to it? It’s my personal affair, anyway!" He turned toward her, exasperated: "If you think," he said, "that your behaviour with Grismer means nothing to me, you’d better undeceive yourself! ... Or I’ll do it for you in a way you can’t mistake!" "Undeceive me?" she repeated uneasily. "How do you mean?" "By making a fight for you myself," he said, "by doing my best to get you back!" "I don’t know what you mean, Jim," she repeated, her grey eyes intent on his flushed face.... "Do you believe you have been insulted by what I did? Is that what you mean?" He did not answer. They walked on, slowly pacing the deserted corridor. Her head was lowered now; her lips a trifle tremulous. "I—didn’t suppose you’d take—what I did—_that_ way," she said unsteadily. "I—respect and love you.... I supposed I was at liberty—to dispose of—myself. I didn’t imagine you cared—very much——" Suddenly he freed his arm from her clasped fingers and passed it around her waist; and she caught her breath and placed her hand tightly over his to hold it there. "You adorable boy," she whispered, "am I forgiven? And you _do_ care for me, don’t you, Jim?" "Care for you!" he repeated in a low, menacing voice. "I care for nobody else in the world, Steve!" She laughed happily, yielding confidently to his embrace, responding swiftly and adorably and with a frank unreserve that told a more innocent story than his close caress and boyish heart on fire confirmed. And, for the moment, she let him have his way, gaily enduring and humorously content with a reconciliation somewhat exaggerated and over-demonstrative on his part. But presently his lips on her flushed face, on her hair, on her throat, disconcerted her, and her own lips parted in dismayed and laughing protest at an ardour entirely new to her. He merely kissed her fragrant mouth into silence, looking steadily into her grey eyes now widening with perplexed and troubled inquiry. "I love you," he said. "I want you back. Now, do you understand, Steve? I love you! I love you!" Confused, crushed hotly in his embrace, she stared blankly at him for one dizzy instant; then, in silence, she twisted her supple body backward and aside, and with both nervous hands broke loose the circle of his arms.