was--a different sort of love with me. I knew as we
crossed the river that first day in the punt that the madness could not
last. You see--it never had."

"Kenny!"

If Joan in that moment had remembered the Irishman tearing bricks from
the fireplace in a spasm of histrionic zeal, she might have distrusted
the steadiness of his level, kindly glance. She might have guessed
that again he was reckless and on his mettle. But she did not remember.

"Romance and mystery," said Kenny, lighting a cigarette and smiling at
her through a cloud of smoke, "were always the death of me. My fancy's
wayward and romantic. Afterward your will-of-the-wisp charm held me
oddly. You kept yourself apart and precious. And I was always
pursuing. It was provocative--and unfamiliar. And then came Samhain,
the--the summer-ending." There was an odd note in his voice. "I faced
a new experience. I had gone over the usual duration of my madness and
I thought," he smiled, "I thought I was loving you for good. But--"

Her dark eyes stared at him, wistful and yet in the moment of her hope
a shade reproachful.

"And--your love--did not last, Kenny?" It was a forlorn little voice,
for all its unmistakable note of rejoicing. How very young she
was--and childlike!

"It--did--not--last!" said Kenny deliberately. "It never does with me.
I should have known it. I love you sincerely, girleen. I always
shall. But I love you as I would have loved--my daughter."

"Your daughter! Kenny, why then did you speak so of the flood of
Killarney?"

"I was testing you. You can see for yourself. I could not honorably
tell you this, dear, if you still cared."

"But I do care," cried Joan, flinging out her hands with a gesture of
appeal. "I love you so much, Kenny, that it hurts."

"But not in the way you love Brian."

"No."

"And that, mavourneen, is as it should be."

He told her of the stage mother. Let the lie go with the castle he had
built upon it. And he would begin afresh.

"Ah," said Joan, dismissing it with shining eyes, "there, Kenny, you
meant only to be kind."

He wondered wearily why the lie with all its torment had not shocked
her. Truth was queer.

Joan glided toward the door. He caught in her face the look of a white
flame and dropped his eyes. A Botticelli look. Ah, well, it was
beautiful to be young and joyous!

"I must tell Brian," she said.

"Yes," said Kenny. "Of course."

And she was gone. Kenny lay