K

"You can afford to be very calm," she said, "because this is only play to

you; I know it. I've known it all along. I'm a good listener and

not--unattractive. But what is play for you is not necessarily play for

me. I am going away from here."

For the first time, he found himself believing in her sincerity. Why, the

girl was white. He didn't want to hurt her. If she cried--he was at the

mercy of any woman who cried.

"Give up your training?"

"What else can I do? This sort of thing cannot go on, Dr. Max."

She did cry then--real tears; and he went over beside her and took her in

his arms.

"Don't do that," he said. "Please don't do that. You make me feel like a

scoundrel, and I've only been taking a little bit of happiness. That's

all. I swear it."

She lifted her head from his shoulder.

"You mean you are happy with me?"

"Very, very happy," said Dr. Max, and kissed her again on the lips.

The one element Carlotta had left out of her calculations was herself. She

had known the man, had taken the situation at its proper value. But she

had left out this important factor in the equation,--that factor which in

every relationship between man and woman determines the equation,--the

woman.

Into her calculating ambition had come a new and destroying element. She

who, like K. in his little room on the Street, had put aside love and the

things thereof, found that it would not be put aside. By the end of her

short vacation Carlotta Harrison was wildly in love with the younger

Wilson.

They continued to meet, not as often as before, but once a week, perhaps.

The meetings were full of danger now; and if for the girl they lost by this

quality, they gained attraction for the man. She was shrewd enough to

realize her own situation. The thing had gone wrong. She cared, and he

did not. It was all a game now, not hers.

All women are intuitive; women in love are dangerously so. As well as she

knew that his passion for her was not the real thing, so also she realized

that there was growing up in his heart something akin to the real thing for

Sidney Page. Suspicion became certainty after a talk they had over the

supper table at a country road-house the day after Christine's wedding.

"How was the wedding--tiresome?" she asked.

"Thrilling! There's always something thrilling to me in a man tying

himself up for life to one woman. It's--it's so reckless."