nt head.

"Then we're at a deadlock."

She gave him a quick glance. "No; it isn't a deadlock, because--because
there's still a way out."

He leaned above her, supporting himself with his hand on the table. "And
it's a way I shall never take so long as you can't say--what you
admitted a little while ago that you couldn't say--"

"I can't say it," she murmured, her face still further averted; "but all
the same it's cruel of you to make it a condition."

He bent lower till his lips almost touched her hair. "It's cruel of
you," he whispered, "to put me in the position where I must."

The room and the hall behind it were now so dim that Davenant had no
difficulty in slipping between the portieres and getting away.

XVII

"He's going to squeeze me out."

This was Davenant's reflection as he walked back, along the Embankment,
to Rodney Temple's house. He made it bitterly, in the light of clarified
views, as to the ethics of giving and taking benefits. Up to within the
last few days the subject had seemed to him a relatively simple one. If
you had money, and wished to give it away, you gave it. If you needed
it, and were so lucky as to have it offered you, you took it. That was
all. That such natural proceedings should create complicated relations
and searchings of heart never entered his mind.

He could see that they might, however, now that the knowledge was forced
upon him. Enlightenment came by the easy process of putting himself in
Ashley's place. "I wouldn't take my wife as a kind of free gift from
another fellow--I'll be hanged if I would! I'd marry her on my own or
not at all."

And unless Ashley assumed the responsibilities of his future wife's
position, he couldn't marry her "on his own." That much was clear. It
was also the most proper thing in the world. It was a right--a
privilege. He looked upon it chiefly as a privilege. Ashley would sell
his estate, and, having paid him, Davenant, the money he had advanced,
would send him about his business. There would be nothing left for him
but to disappear. The minute there was no need for him there would be no
place for him. He had been no more than the man who holds a horse till
the owner comes and rides away.

Worse than that reflection was the fear that his intervention had been
uncalled for in the first place. The belief that it was imperative had
been his sole excuse for forcing himself on people who fought against
his aid and professed themselve