me.

"It isn't very conventional, Mr. Cole," she said, with a little laugh
that sounded forced. "Gordon and I have already kissed one another a few
times. Once more will make no difference. I have done nothing to prevent
him from at least continuing to consider me as a good friend, perhaps as
the sister I've been playing at. Of course we'll have to give it up,
now, because--because people can't keep on playing all the time and--and
others wouldn't understand. I don't mind you, because you wrote that
wonderful book and--and you seem to know so many things."

Then she turned to him again.

"Now tell me about yourself, Gordon," she said pleasantly, folding her
hands upon her lap.

He had remained standing. An instinct of shyness, something like the
humiliation of the man imperfectly clad or conscious of an ugly blemish,
made him keep his right arm behind him.

"There--there's not much to tell," he began, rather haltingly, though he
soon regained control. "I've come back because I could no longer be any
good over there and--and because I became hungry for a sight of old
things--and of old friends, I suppose. You--you're awfully kind,
you--you've always been a splendid woman--a proud one, too, but now you
come here and put out your hand in friendship to--to a fellow who has
behaved rottenly to you. No, don't say anything! Dave used that word. He
sometimes speaks to the point. I'll tell you everything. It will hurt
you, I'm afraid, as it hurts me, but I've got to do it and I will beg
your pardon afterwards. It was all a plan on my part, at first. You were
a wonderful, gorgeous creature, one to whom any man would be attracted,
and I thought you would make a grand wife and a great stepping-stone to
the ambitions that filled my stupid head. And then, somehow, these all
went by the board, and a passion came to me--yes, a passion like the
week's or the month's insanity that comes to some, for another woman.
She is a good woman and a very beautiful one also, the sort of woman
who, like yourself, deserves the best and noblest in the man whose love
she may return. And she refused me, quickly, sharply, with just a word
or two. I think she also thought I was insane; I remember that she
looked frightened. And then I wrote to you, a beastly letter. I tore up
a score of them and sent the worst, I'm afraid. Then I took the steamer
and went off to drive up and down those roads. It--it has, perhaps, been
good for me, for I've seen how