nt would be great enough; there are all the
coming years for you to be sorry in, Tom. But in the fullness of time I
meant to remind you of your duty. The time has come; you must play the
man's part now. What have you done with her?"

"Wait a moment. I must know one other thing," he insisted. "You heard
this before you went to Europe?"

"Long before."

"And it didn't make any difference in the way you felt toward me?"

"It did; it made the vastest difference." They were pacing slowly up and
down the portico, and she waited until they had made the turn at the
Woodlawn end before she went on. "I thought I knew you when we were boy
and girl together, and, girl-like, I suppose I had idealized you in some
ways. I thought I knew your wickednesses, and that they were not
weaknesses; so--so it was a miserable shock. But it was not for me to
judge you--only as you might rise or sink from that desperate starting
point. When I came home I was sure that you had risen; I have been sure
of it ever since until--until these few wretched hours to-night. They
are past, and now I'm going to be sure of it some more, Tom."

It was his turn to be silent, and they had measured twice the length of
the pillared floor when at last he said:

"What if I should tell you that you are mistaken--that all of them are
mistaken?"

"Don't," she said softly. "That would only be smashing what is left of
the ideal. I think I couldn't bear that."

"God in Heaven!" he said, under his breath. "And you've been calling
this friendship! Ardea, girl, it's _love_!"

She shook her head slowly.

"No," she rejoined gravely. "At one time I thought--I was afraid--that
it might be. But now I know it isn't."

"How do you know it?"

"Because love, as I think of it, is stronger than the traditions,
stronger than anything else in the world. And the traditions are still
with me. I admit the existence of the social pale, and as long as I live
within it I have a right to demand certain things of the man who marries
me."

"And love doesn't demand anything," he said, putting the remainder of
the thought into words for her. "You are right. If I could clear myself
with a word, I should not say it."

"Why?"

"Because your--loyalty, let us call it, is too precious to be exchanged
for anything else you could give me in place of it--esteem, respect, and
all the other well-behaved and virtuous bestowals."

"But the loyalty is based on the belief that you are trying to