to spoil my bridge? Is that your
idea of a man's way?"

She had given no thought to Wickersham until that moment, and now she
thought of him only in connection with a night when she had found him
alone in her father's office and wondered at the stale odor of alcohol.

"I do not know," she hesitated. "I am not sure, only----"

"You should know!" But he was less vehement now. Wearily he set
himself to get at it in his own fashion. "Some men are only physical
cowards," he went on. "But you have almost made a moral coward of me.
Yes, you had nearly made me afraid to be the man I must be, if I am to
do my work."

"There are other fields----"

He would not let her argue that.

"There is no other field for me at present. This is my work and while
I continue in it men who oppose me with their brains I will fight with
my brain. But men who force me to meet them with fists I must beat
with like weapons. There is no alternative. I have no choice--unless
I quit. And that is the reason I know that this is the end, for you
and me!"

Sadness she had never known before in his voice, nor the edge which was
cutting all it came against. Now it grew gentler, with that gentleness
he saved for her alone.

"Once we argued whether I was 'good enough' for you, and we wasted many
words that day, for 'good enough' can cover too many qualities to be a
safe basis for general comparison. I have been arguing it with myself,
blind to the vital question, but I am blind no longer. Combat which
sickened you has cleared my eyes. What if I did believe that I was not
good enough to touch your little finger? What if you believed that
too? Would that have hindered us, in the end? You know it wouldn't;
you have seen too many women give themselves to men whom they knew were
unworthy in a hundred ways, because they could not help themselves.
But that way would never have done for me."

"It isn't that," she cut in desperately. "I know you are big and fine
and clean. It isn't that----"

But he knew better than she did what it was she could not phrase. He
left her dry of lip now, for he had read her thoughts.

"My ways would have had to be your ways, and we have learned at last
what I have feared for long and long. They lie too far apart for them
ever to meet. My man's way is not your woman's way, but I could not
stay a man in your eyes if I let it become secondary to yours; and I
would have to do just that to earn you. Once I