the hand?"

"Nonsense!" she said lightly. "You are in the dumps of the reaction now.
You mustn't say things that you will be sorry for, later on."

"I am going to say one thing, nevertheless; and will remain for you to
make it a thing hard to be remembered, or the other kind. Will you take
what there is of me and make what you can of it?"

She laughed in his face.

"No, my dear David; no, no, no." And after a little pause: "How
deliciously transparent you are, to be sure!"

He would have been less than a man if his self-love had not been touched
in its most sensitive part.

"I am glad if it amuses you," he frowned. "Only I meant it in all
seriousness."

"No, you didn't; you only thought you did," she contradicted, and the
brown eyes were still laughing at him. "Let me tell you what you did mean.
You are pleased to think that I have helped you--that an obligation has
been incurred; and you meant to pay your debt like a man and a gentleman
in the only coin a woman is supposed to recognize."

"But if I should say that you are misinterpreting the motive?" he
suggested.

"It would make your nice little speech a perjury instead of a simple
untruth, and I should say no, again, on other, and perhaps better,
grounds."

"Name them," he said shortly.

"I will, David, though I am neither a stick nor a stone to do it without
wincing. You love another woman with all your heart and soul, and you know
it."

"Well? You see I am neither admitting nor denying."

"As if you needed to!" she scoffed. "But don't interrupt me, please. You
said I might take what there is of you and make what I can of it: I might
make you anything and everything in the world, David, except that which a
woman craves most in a husband--a lover."

His eyes grew dark.

"I wish I knew how much that word means to you, Portia."

"It means just as much to me as it does to every woman who has ever drawn
the breath of life in a passionate world, David. But that isn't all.
Leaving Miss Brentwood entirely out of the question, you'd be miserably
unhappy."

"Why should I?"

"Because I shouldn't be able to realize a single one of your ideals. I
know what they are--what you will expect in a wife. I could make you a
rich man, a successful man, as the world measures success, and perhaps I
could even give you love: after the first flush of youth is past, the
heavenly-affinity sentiment loses its hold and a woman comes to know that
if she cares to try hard