put your seal on our divine
betrothal."

"I gave you my lips, you held me in your arms, doesn't that mean love to
you?"

"Claire, why do you talk that way?"

"Why shouldn't I? Isn't it true?"

"Yes, but you--you seem so unlike the woman you are."

"Oh, I see. But you haven't told me fully why you wanted me to say I
loved you."

He stood up nervously and moved a few paces away, but the patient,
self-reproachful gaze in Claire's eyes brought him back again.

"Why talk of that at all, dearest?" he whispered. "We have each other.
Isn't that enough?"

"Perhaps not. You asked me to say it, you know."

"Yes, but I don't care. I won't plague you. I know you do love, me." He
kissed her again and then looked at her. Her lips had been cold.

"What is the matter, Claire? Don't you love me? Is that why you wouldn't
give me your word?"

It was coming at last. How could she make Philip see, and yet be fair to
him, too?

"I don't know what you mean by love." Her voice was carefully toneless.

Philip's eyes lighted. "Don't you want me here beside you? Don't you
warm to my kisses? Isn't there an awakened tenderness in you at my
touch? Isn't there, dearest?"

Claire's hands moved nervously up and down the edge of the comforter.
"If I should stay here with you, that would be the highest proof that I
loved you, wouldn't it?"

"What else?" He looked at her, hope giving his face a renewed glow.

Was that all that love meant to him? "Is that what your years of thought
have taught you?" she said aloud.

"Why, yes, Claire, the return of passion for passion, of warmth for
warmth, of tenderness for tenderness, must be the last test, mustn't
it?"

Despite her resolution her eyes narrowed ironically.

Philip started, and stared at her.

"Would you ever be jealous of my husband?" she asked, slowly.

His head dropped. "No--and yes. Of course, I wish he hadn't been your
husband, but we can't help what fate has decreed." He raised his eyes,
and then suddenly he smiled. "Claire, is it because of him that you are
unwilling to tell me you love me?" he asked softly. "I think I can
understand. You'll have to be freed from him in some way, and we must be
married, of course."

"I am free from him. To him, I am dead. Isn't that enough?"

"Yes," he answered judiciously, "if your own conscience is satisfied."

She smiled a little, her eyebrows lifting in amusement. "Oh, my own
conscience dictates my every act, Philip."

"I know i