er gown, the gold sleeve-links at her wrists, the specks of brine
that glistened on her temples under the wind-woven strands of her
black hair; it recorded these things and remembered them afterward.
And all the time the boat came nearer, and the slow, steady stroke
of the oars measured his hour by minutes, till the sweat, sprung
from the labor and passion of his nerves, stood out in beads on his
forehead.

He looked at her; and her beauty, the beauty born of her freedom and
abounding life, the beauty he worshiped, was implacable; the
divinity in it remained untouched by his desire.

"You needn't care," he said desperately. "I'm not asking you to
care; I'm not asking you to give me your love, but only to take
mine."

She smiled. "I'm not so dishonest as to borrow what I can't repay."

His voice was monotonous in its iteration. "I'm not talking about
repayment; I'll risk that. I don't want you to borrow it. I want you
to take it, keep it, spend it any way you like, and--throw it away
when you can't do anything more with it."

"And never return it? Ah, my friend! we can't do these things."

She dropped into the deck-chair, exhausted with the discussion. Her
brow was heavy with thought; she was still racking her brains to
find some argument that would appease him.

"I loved you--yes. And in my own way I love you now, if you could
only be content with my way."

"Haven't you told me that your way is not my way?"

"Yes; and I've done worse than that. I've been talking to you as if
you had made me suffer tortures, as if you had brought me all the
pain of existence instead of all the pleasure. If you only knew!
There's nothing I've been enjoying all these five years that I don't
owe to you--to you and nobody else. You were very good to me even at
the first; and afterward--well, I believe I love life as few women
can love it, and it came to me through you. Do you think I can ever
forget that? Forget what I owe you? You stood by me and showed me
the way out; you stood by and opened the door of the world."

To stand by and open the door for her--it was all he was good for.
In other words, she had made use of him. Well, had he not proposed
to make use of her? After all, in what did his view of her differ
from the Colonel's, which he abominated? All along, from the very
first, it had been the old theory of the woman for the man. Frida
for the Colonel's use, for his (Durant's) amusement, and now for his
possession. Under