t tell you. Oh, why can't friends be friends and not.
. . . That is why I spoke to you, Albert, why I wanted to have this talk
with you. I was going away so soon and I couldn't bear to go with any
unfriendliness between us. There mustn't be. Don't you see?"

He heard but a part of this. The memory of Raymond's face as he had seen
it when the young man strode out of the cloakroom and out of the hotel
came back to him and with it a great heart-throbbing sense of relief, of
triumph. He seized her hand.

"Helen," he cried, "did he--did you tell him--Oh, by George, Helen,
you're the most wonderful girl in the world! I'm--I--Oh, Helen, you know
I--I--"

It was not his habit to be at a loss for words, but he was just then. He
tried to retain her hand, to put his arm about her.

"Oh, Helen!" he cried. "You're wonderful! You're splendid! I'm crazy
about you! I really am! I--"

She pushed him gently away. "Don't! Please don't!" she said. "Oh,
don't!"

"But I must. Don't you see I. . . . Why, you're crying!"

Her face had, for a moment, been upturned. The moon at that moment had
slipped behind a cloud, but the lamplight from the window had shown
him the tears in her eyes. He was amazed. He could have shouted, have
laughed aloud from joy or triumphant exultation just then, but to weep!
What occasion was there for tears, except on Ed Raymond's part?

"You're crying!" he repeated. "Why, Helen--!"

"Don't!" she said, again. "Oh, don't! Please don't talk that way."

"But don't you want me to, Helen? I--I want you to know how I feel. You
don't understand. I--"

"Hush! . . . Don't, Al, don't, please. Don't talk in that way. I don't
want you to."

"But why not?"

"Oh, because I don't. It's--it is foolish. You're only a boy, you know."

"A boy! I'm more than a year older than you are."

"Are you? Why yes, I suppose you are, really. But that doesn't make any
difference. I guess girls are older than boys when they are our age,
lots older."

"Oh, bother all that! We aren't kids, either of us. I want you to
listen. You don't understand what I'm trying to say."

"Yes, I do. But I'm sure you don't. You are glad because you have
found you have no reason to be jealous of Ed Raymond and that makes you
say--foolish things. But I'm not going to have our friendship spoiled
in that way. I want us to be real friends, always. So you mustn't be
silly."

"I'm not silly. Helen, if you won't listen to anything else, will you
listen to