. You are right. The girl I cared for--the girl who was
there with me on Brier Water--so many, many centuries ago--the girl who,
years ago, leaned there beside me on the sun-dial--has become a
memory."

"What do you mean?" she asked faintly.

"Shall I tell you?"

"Yes."

"You will not be unhappy if I tell you?"

"N-no."

"Have you any idea what I am going to say, Eileen?"

She looked up quickly, frightened at the tremor in his voice:

"Don't--don't say it, Captain Selwyn!"

"Will you listen--as a penance?"

"I--no, I cannot--"

He said quietly: "I was afraid you could not listen. You see, Eileen,
that, after all, a man does know when he is done for--"

"Captain Selwyn!" She turned and caught his hands in both of hers, her
eyes bright with tears: "Is that the penalty for what I said? Did you
think I invited this--"

"Invited! No, child," he said gently. "I was fool enough to believe in
myself; that is all. I have always been on the edge of loving you. Only
in dreams did I ever dare set foot across that frontier. Now I have
dared. I love you. That is all; and it must not distress you."

"But it does not," she said; "I have always loved you--dearly,
dearly. . . . Not in that way. . . . I don't know how. . . . Must it be
in _that_ way, Captain Selwyn? Can we not go on in the other way--that
dear way which I--I have--almost spoiled? Must we be like other
people--must sentiment turn it all to commonplace? . . . Listen to me; I
do love you; it is perfectly easy and simple to say it. But it is not
emotional, it is not sentimental. Can't you see that in little
things--in my ways with you? I--if I were sentimental about you I would
call you Ph--by your first name, I suppose. But I can't; I've tried
to--and it's very, very hard--and makes me self-conscious. It is an
effort, you see--and so would it be for me to think of you sentimentally.
Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!--you, so much of a man, so strong and
generous and experienced and clever--so perfectly the embodiment of
everything I care for in a man! I love you dearly; but--you saw! I
could--could not bring myself to touch even your hair--even in pure
mischief. . . . And--sentiment chills me; I--there are times when it
would be unendurable--I could not use an endearing term--nor suffer a--a
caress. . . . So you see--don't you? And won't you take me for what I
am?--and as I am?--a girl--still young, devoted to you with all her
soul--happy with you, believing imp