“Ah, I am afraid you don’t care to know it; that you are playing with a pleasurable emotion. Take care--oh, take care, I tell you! The halt and maimed see further in the dark than the vigorous. Renny, there is trouble ahead. I know more of women than you do, perhaps, because, cut off from manly exercises, I can gauge their temptations and their weaknesses. I see a way of striking at you that you don’t dream of. Be great with resolve! Save my little book-sewer, I implore you.” “Duke,” I said, with extreme emotion, for I fancied I could catch the shine of most unaccustomed tears in his dark eyes, “my good, dear fellow, what is the meaning of this? I would do anything to make you or Dolly happy; but where is the sense of half-measures? If you feel like this, why don’t you--I say it with all love--why don’t----” He struggled to his feet, and with a wild, pathetic action drew emptiness about him with enfolding arms. “I tell you,” he cried, in a broken voice, “that I would give my life to stand in your shoes, valuing the evil as nothing to the sweet.” He dropped his head on his breast and I had no word to say. My willful blindness seemed to me at that moment as vile a thing as any in my life. Suddenly he stood erect once more. “Renny,” he said, with a faint smile, “for all your good friendship you don’t know me yet, I see. I’m too stiff-jointed to kneel.” “Don’t curse me for blighting your life like this. But, Duke--I never guessed. If I had--it didn’t matter to me--I would have walked over a precipice rather than cross your path.” “How could you know? Wasn’t I sworn to philosophy?” “And it can’t be now?” “It can never be.” “Think, Duke--think.” “I never do anything else. Love may exist on pity, but not on charity. I put myself on one side. It is her happiness that has to be considered first; and, Renny, you know the way to it.” “Duke, have you always felt like this toward her?” “Always? I feel here that I should answer you according to my theory of life. But I have shown you my weak side. Every negro, they say, worships white as the complexion of his unknown God. From my first sight of her I have tried to rub my sooty soul clean--have tried every means like the ‘Black-Gob’ committee in Hood’s poem.” “I think you have been successful--if any rubbing was necessary. I think at least you have proved your affinity to her, and will claim and be claimed by her in the hereafter.” “I shall not have the less chance then, for striving to procure her happiness here.” “Oh, Duke--no!” I stood abashed in presence of so much lofty abrogation of self. “What am I to do?” I said, humbly. “I will be guided by you. Shall I study to make our interests one and trust to heaven for the right feeling?” “First tell her what you have told me. You need have no fear.” “Very well. I will do so on the first opportunity.” “That confidence alone will make a bond between you. But, Renny--oh, don’t delay.”