herself, as I 've done. I call
myself a fool--I'm a lunatic. Trust me with your hand.'

'There you are.'

She grasped the hand, and shut her eyes to make a long age of the holding
on to him. 'Oh, you dear dear fellow!--don't think me unwomanly; I must
tell you now: I am naked and can't disguise. I see you are ice--feel: and
if you were different, I might be. You won't be hurt by hearing you've
made yourself dear to me--without meaning to, I know! It began that day
at Lakelands; I fell in love with you the very first minute I set eyes on
you! There's a confession for a woman to make! and a married woman! I'm
married, and I no more feel allegiance, as they call it, than if there
never had been a ceremony and no Jacob Blathenoy was in existence. And
why I should go to him! But you shan't be troubled. I did not begin to
live, as a woman, before I met you. I can speak all this to you
because--we women can't be deceived in that--you are one of the men who
can be counted on for a friend.'

'I hope so,' Dartrey said, and his mouth hardened as nature's electricity
shot sparks into him from the touch and rocked him.

'No, not yet: I will soon let it drop,' said she, and she was just then
thrillingly pretty; she caressed the hand, placing it at her throat and
moving her chin on it, as women fondle birds. 'I am positively to go,
then?'

'Positively, you are to go; and it's my command.'

'Not in love with any one at all?'

'Not with a soul.'

'Not with a woman?'

'With no woman.'

'Nor maid?'

'No! and no to everything. And an end to the catechism!'

'It is really a flint that beats here?' she said, and with a shyness in
adventurousness, she struck the point of her forefinger on the rib.
'Fancy me in love with a flint! And running to be dutiful to a Jacob
Blathenoy, at my flint's command. I'm half in love with doing what I
hate, because this cold thing here bids me do it. I believe I married for
money, and now it looks as if I were to have my bargain with poverty to
bless it.'

'There I may help,' said Dartrey, relieved at sight of a loophole, to
spring to some initiative out of the paralysis cast on him by a pretty
little woman's rending of her veil. A man of honour alone with a woman
who has tossed concealment to the winds, is a riddled target indeed: he
is tempted to the peril of cajoleing, that he may escape from the torment
and the ridicule; he is tempted to sigh for the gallant spirit of his
naughty adolesce