ou liked. I would make it possible. I swear I would."

She shook her head, and went on, with the same reasonable sweetness.
"And then, there's another thing. If I married you, sooner or later you
would have to take me home to your people. Have you really thought of
that, and how you would feel about it, when it came to the point?--No,
no, it's impossible for me to marry you."

"But that--that American!--you would have married him?"

"That was different," she said, and her voice grew thinner. "It's the
knowing that tells, Maurice. You would have that still to learn. You
don't realise it yet, but afterwards, it would come home to
you.--Listen! You have always been kind to me, I owe you such a debt of
gratitude, that I'm going to be frank, brutally frank with you. I've
told you often that I shall never really care for anyone again. You
know that, don't you? Well, I want to tell you, too--I want you to
understand quite, quite clearly that ... that I belonged to him
altogether--entirely--that I ... Oh, you know what I mean!"

Maurice covered his face with his hands. "The past is the past. It
should never be mentioned between us. It doesn't matter--nothing
matters now."

"You say that--every one says that--beforehand," she answered; and not
only her words, but also her way of saying them, seemed to set her down
miles away from him, on a lonely pinnacle of experience. "Afterwards,
you would think differently."

"Louise, if you really cared, it would be different. You wouldn't say
such things, then--you would be only too glad not to say them."

In her heart she knew that he was right, and did not contradict him.
The busy little clock on the writing-table ticked away a few seconds.
With a jerk, Maurice rose to his feet. Louise remained sitting, and he
looked down on her black head. His gaze was so insistent that she felt
it, and raised her eyes. His forlorn face moved her.

"Why is it--what is the matter with me?--that I must upset your life
like this? I can't bear to see you so unhappy.--And yet I haven't done
anything, have I? I have always been honest with you; I've never made
myself out to be better than I am. There must be something wrong with
me, I think, that no one can ever be satisfied to be just my
friend.--Yet with you I thought it was different. I thought things
could go on as they were. Maurice, isn't it possible? Say it is! Show
me just one little spark of good in myself!"

"I'm not different from other m