we'll show him about that."

She shook hands with him on it.

"You're very good to me," she said, so naively that he could not keep
back his smile.

"Most people would say I was very good to myself. What you offer me is
a thing I might have fought for all my life and never won."

"Then I'm glad if it pleases you. That's enough about business. Now,
we'll talk about something important."

He could think of only one thing more important to him than this, but
it appeared she meant plans to see as much as possible of him while he
was in the city.

"I suppose you have any number of other friends here that will want
you?" she said.

"They can't have me if this friend wants me," he answered, with that
deep glow in his eyes she recognized from of old; and before she could
summon her reserves of defense he asked: "Do you want me, Aline?"

His meaning came to her with a kind of sweet shame. "No, no, no--not
yet," she cried.

"Dear," he answered, taking her little hand in his big one, "only this
now: that I can't help wanting to be near you to comfort you, because I
love you. For everything else, I am content to wait."

"And I love you," the girl-widow answered, a flush dyeing her cheeks.
"But I ought not to tell you yet, ought I?"

There was that in her radiant tear-dewed eyes that stirred the deepest
stores of tenderness in the man. His finer instincts, vandal and pagan
though he was, responded to it.

"It is right that you should tell me, since it is true, but it is
right, too, that we should wait."

"It is sweet to know that you love me. There are so many things I don't
understand. You must help me. You are so strong and so sure, and I am
so helpless."

"You dear innocent, so strong in your weakness," he murmured to himself.

"You must be a guide to me and a teacher."

"And you a conscience to me," he smiled, not without amusement at the
thought.

She took it seriously. "But I'm afraid I can't. You know so much better
than I do what is right."

"I'm quite a paragon of virtue," he confessed.

"You're so sure of everything. You took it for granted that I loved
you. Why were you so sure?"

"I was just as sure as you were that I cared for you. Confess."

She whispered it. "Yes, I knew it, but when you did not come I thought,
perhaps You see, I'm not strong or clever. I can't help you as Virginia
could." She stopped, the color washing from her face. "I had forgotten.
You have no right to love me--nor I yo