"I--perhaps--please do as you see fit, Mr. Quarren." "Very well," he said quietly. He caressed the dog's head where it lay across his knees, and looked out over the water. Breezes crinkled the surface in every direction and wind-blown dragon-flies glittered like swift meteors darting athwart the sun. She said in a low voice: "I hope your new business venture will be successful." "I know you do. It is very sweet of you to care." "I care--greatly.... As much as I--dare." He laughed: "Don't you dare care about me?" She bit her lip: "I have found it slightly venturesome on one or two occasions." "So you don't really dare express your kindly regard for me fearing I might again mistake it for something deeper." He was still laughing, and she lifted her gray eyes in silence for a moment, then: "There is nothing in the world deeper than my regard for you--if you will let it be what it is, and seek to make nothing less spiritual out of it." "Do you mean that?" he asked, his face altering. "Mean it? Why of course I do, Mr. Quarren." "I thought I spoiled that for both of us," he said. "I didn't say so. I told you that I didn't know what you had done. I've had time to reflect. It--our friendship isn't spoiled--if you still value it." "I value it above everything in the world, Strelsa." There was a silence. The emotion in his face and voice was faintly reflected in hers. "Then let us have peace," she said unsteadily. "I have--been--not very happy since you--since we----" "I know. I've been utterly miserable, too." He lifted one of her hands and kissed it, and she changed colour but left her hand lying inert in his. "Do you mind?" he asked. "N-no." He laid his lips to her fingers again; she stirred uneasily, then rested her other arm on the back of the seat and shaded her eyes. "I think--you had better not--touch me--any more--" she said faintly. "Is it disagreeable?" "Yes--n-no.... It is--it has nothing to do with friendship--" she looked up, flushed, curious: "Why do you always want to touch me, Mr. Quarren?" "Did you never caress a flower?" "Rix!"--she caught her breath as his name escaped her for the first time, and he saw her face surging in the loveliest colour. "It was your nonsensical answer!--I--it took me by surprise ... and I ask your pardon for being stupid.... And--may I have my hand? I use it occasionally." He quietly reversed it, laid his lips to the palm, and released her fingers. "Strelsa," he said, "I'm coming back into the battle again." "Then I am sorry I forgave you." "_Are_ you?" "Yes, I am. Yes, yes, yes! Why can't you be to me what I wish to be to you? Why can't you be what I want--what I need----" "Do you know what you need?" "Yes, I----" "No, you don't. You need to love--and to be loved. You don't know it, but you do!" "That is a--a perfectly brutal thing to say----" "Does it sound so to you?" "Yes, it does! It is brutal--common, unworthy of you and of me----"