When they were well away from the hotel Hallam took the pipe from his mouth and looked down at the girl's unconscious face and smiled dryly. He wondered whether she realised that they were objects of curiosity to the people they had left behind, whether, if she did realise it, it would trouble her at all? Her eyes, lifted to his in response to his steady scrutiny, showed darkly shadowed in the uncertain light; they smiled frankly up at him. He knew while he gazed down at her that he would miss her when she had gone, that life would seem emptier, more purposeless, than before. From the first he had realised the danger of the acquaintance; yet he had drifted into it with very little effort to evade the danger. He had not made the advances, but he had responded to them; and now he was regretting, with a sense of bitter futility, the folly of allowing her to become a significant influence in his life. He could not end the thing now; he did not want to; her companionship had become necessary to him. But he could prevent her liking for him from developing, could, if he chose, crush it outright. To crush it outright was perhaps the wiser course. "You know," he said quietly, "those people who watched us away are deploring your indiscretion in associating with me. I am not resenting it. They are perfectly right. I am not a desirable companion for any one. Why did you first speak to me? Why do you persist in the acquaintance? I often wonder. Don't you know what I am?" "Perhaps I do," she answered in so low a voice that, but for the stillness of the night, he would scarce have heard the faltered words. "I think that is one reason why I spoke to you." "You mean," he said, "that you were sorry? That's kind of you. But I am not conscious of needing sympathy. What other reason had you?" "Isn't it only natural to talk to people one meets daily?" she asked. "I talk to every one in the hotel." He smiled. "I have observed that. But you don't walk with them. Why did you insist on my coming out to-night?" "Oh!" she said, and felt her face aflame, and was grateful for the darkness which concealed her confusion. "I cannot give a reason for every impulse that moves me. I wanted to walk." "Excuse me if I accuse you once more of insincerity," he said. "It was no impulse that prompted you to ask me. It was a deliberate and premeditated request which cost you some effort to make. Your concern for me is very flattering. But you waste your sympathy. What do you imagine you accomplish by this display of energy? You will overtire yourself, that is all. For me, it is merely a long time between drinks." Tears came into her eyes. She hoped he did not see them, but she could not have kept them back. He hurt her even more than he intended to. "I don't care," she said, a little unsteadily, "how hard you box my ears. I am glad I asked you to come. I'm glad you came." She raised her face suddenly and lifted defiant eyes to his.