"Would you care what might be said of us--as long as we know our

friendship is blameless? I am not taking you from her, am I? I am

not taking anything away from her, am I?

"I have not always played squarely with men. I don't think it is

possible. They have hoped for--various eventualities. I have not

encouraged them; I have merely let them hope. Which is not square.

"But I wish always to play square with women. Unless a woman does,

nobody will.... And that is why I ask you, Clive--am I robbing her--if

you come back to me--as you were?--nothing more--nothing less, Clive,

but just exactly as you were."

It was impossible for him to control his voice or his words or even

his thoughts just yet; he stood with his lean head turned partly from

her, motionless as a rock, in the desperate grip of self-mastery,

crushing the slender hands that alternately yielded and clasped his

own.

"Oh, Clive," she said, "Clive! You don't know--you never can know what

loneliness means to such a woman as I am.... I thought once--many

times--that I could never again speak to you--that I never again could

care to hear about you.... But I was wrong, pitifully wrong.

"It was not jealousy of her, Clive; you know that, don't you? There

had never been any question of such sentiment between you and

me--excepting once--one night--that last night when you said

good-bye--and you were very much overwrought.

"So it was not jealousy.... It was loneliness. I wanted you, even if

you had fallen in love. That sort of love had nothing to do with us!

"There was nothing in it that ought to have come between you and

me?... Besides, if such an ephemeral thought ever drifted through my

idle mind, I knew on reflection that you and I could never be destined

to marry, even if such sentiment ever inclined us. I knew it and

accepted it without troubling to analyse the reasons. I had no desire

to invade your world--less desire now that I have penetrated it

professionally and know a little about it.

"It was not jealousy, Clive."

He swung around, bent swiftly and pressed his lips to her hands. And

she abandoned them to him with all her heart and soul in an

overwhelming passion of purest emotion.

"I couldn't stand it, Clive," she said, "when I heard you were at your

hotel alone.... And all the unhappiness I had heard of--your married

life--I--I couldn't stand it; I couldn't let you remain there all

alone!




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