give with
both hands--- I am to have my friend and my love as well. It is very
wonderful. Oh, sweet, don't fret! Don't fret! See how simple it all is!"

But Maxine's bitter crying went on, until at last it frightened him.

"Maxine, don't! Don't, for God's sake! Why should you cry like this?
What is it, when all's said and done, but a point of view? And a point
of view is adjusted much more quickly than you think. At first I thought
the earth was reeling round me, but now I know that 'twas only my own
brain that reeled; and I know, too, that subconsciously I must always
have recognized you in Max--for I never treated Max as a common boy, did
I? Did I, now? I always had a queer--a queer respect for him. Dear one,
see it with me! Try to see it with me?"

His appeal was pathetic; it was he who was the culprit--he who
extenuated and pleaded. The position struck Maxine, wounding her like a
knife.

"Oh, don't!" she cried in her own turn. "Don't, for the sake of God!"

"But why? Why? My sweet! My love! My little friend! Max--Maxine!"

It was not to be borne. She wrenched herself free and sprang to her
feet, confronting him with a pale face down which the tears streamed.

"Because I am not your love! I am not your friend! I am not your
Max--or your Maxine!"

Swift as she, he was on his feet, his bearing changed, his manhood
recognizing the challenge in her voice, his instinct of possession alive
to combat it.

"Not mine?" he said; and to Maxine, standing white and frail before him,
the words seemed to have all the significance of life itself. Now at
last they confronted each other--man and woman; now at last the issue in
the war of sex was to be put to the test.

She had always known that this moment would arrive--always known that
she would meet it in some such manner as she was meeting it now.

"Not mine?" Blake said again.

She shook her head, throwing back her shoulders, clasping her hands
behind her, unconsciously taking on the attitude of defiance.

"And why not?"

It was curt, this question, as man's vital questions ever are; it was an
onslaught that clove to the heart of things.

She trembled for an instant, then met his eyes.

"Because I will belong to no one. I must possess myself."

He stared at her.

"But it is not given to any one to possess himself! How can you separate
an atom from the universal mass?"

"An atom may detach itself--"

"And fall into space! Is that self-possession? But, my