for him to worry
about your effect on him?"

"I--do not wish him to be unhappy."

"Oh. But you are willing to be unhappy in order to save him any
uneasiness. See here, Rosalie, you'd better pull up sharp."

"Had I?"

"Certainly," he said brutally. "Not many days ago you were adrift. Don't
cut your cable again."

A vivid colour mounted to her temples:

"That is all over," she said. "Have I not come to you again in spite of
the folly that sent me drifting to you before? And can I pay you a truer
compliment, Duane, than to ask the hospitality of your forbearance and
the shelter of your friendship?"

"You _are_ a trump, Rosalie," he said, after a moment's scowling.
"You're all right.... I don't know what to say.... If it's going to give
you a little happiness to care for this man----"

"But what will it do to him, Duane?"

"It ought to do him good if such a girl as you gives him all of herself
that she decently can. I don't know whether I'm right or wrong!" he
added almost angrily. "Confound it! there seems no end to conjugal
infelicity around us these days. I don't know where the line is--how
close to the danger mark an unhappy woman may drift and do no harm to
anybody. All I know is that I'm sorry--terribly sorry for you. You're a
corker."

"Thanks," she said with a faint smile. "Do you think Delancy may safely
agree with you without danger to his peace of mind?"

"Why not? After all, you're entitled to lawful happiness. So is he....
Only----"

"Only--what?"

"I've never seen it succeed."

"Seen what succeed?"

"What is popularly known as the platonic."

"Oh, this isn't _that_," she said naively. "He's rather in love already,
and I'm quite sure I could be if I--I let myself."

Duane groaned.

"Don't come to me asking what to do, then," he said impatiently,
"because I know what you ought to do and I don't know what I'd do under
the circumstances. You know as well as I do where the danger mark is.
Don't you?"

"I--suspect."

"Well, then----"

"Oh, we haven't reached it yet," she said innocently.

Her honesty appalled him, and he got up and began to pace the gravel
walk.

"Do you intend to cross it?" he asked, halting abruptly.

"No, I don't.... I don't want to.... Do you think there is any fear of
it?"

"My Lord!" he said in despair, "you talk like a child. I'm trying to
realise that you women--some of you who appear so primed with doubtful,
worldly wisdom--are practically as innocent as