't be disgraced. I should be. Don't you see? No one
would ever believe--"

"Oh, what does it matter what any one believes. Let them all go hang."

"We can't let them all go hang. You can't let your father go hang, and I
can't let mine. Do you know what my father would do to me if he knew
where I am now? He'd kill me."

"Oh, rot, Rosie!"

"No, no, Claude; I'm telling you the truth. He's that sort. You wouldn't
think it, but he is. He's one of those mild, dreamy men who, when
they're enraged--which isn't often--don't know where to stop. If he
thought I'd done wrong he'd put a knife into me, just like that." She
struck her clenched hand against his heart. "When Matt was arrested--"

He tore himself from her suddenly. The sensitive part of him had been
touched. "Oh, Lord, Rosie, don't let's go into that. I hate that
business. I try to forget it."

"No one can forget it who remembers me."

"Oh yes, they can. _I_ can--when you don't drag it up. What's the use,
Rosie? Why not be happy for the few hours every now and then that we can
get together? What's got into you?" He changed his tone. "You hurt me,
Rosie, you hurt me. You talk as if you didn't trust me. You seem to have
suspicions, to be making schemes--"

"Oh, Claude! For God's sake!" Rosie, too, was touched on the quick,
perhaps by some truth in the accusation.

He kissed her ardently. "I know, dear; I know. I know it's all
right--that you don't mean anything. Kiss me. Tell me you won't do it
any more--that you won't hurt the man who adores you. What does anything
else matter? You and I are everything there is in the world. Don't let
us talk. When we've got each other--"

Rosie gave it up, for the present at any rate. She began to perceive
dimly that they had different conceptions of love. For her, love was
engagement and marriage, with the material concomitants the two states
implied. But for Claude love was something else. It was something she
didn't understand, except that it was indifferent to the orderly
procession by which her own ambitions climbed. He loved her; of that she
was sure. But he loved her for her face, her mouth, her eyes, her hair,
the color of her skin, her roughened little hands, her lithe little
body. Of nothing else in her was he able to take cognizance. Her hard
life and her heart-breaking struggles were conditions he hadn't the eyes
to see. He was aware of them, of course, but he could detach her from
them. He could detach her from t