"When you said just now that you didn't like what I did just then, do

you mean you didn't like me to do it? Or that you don't care for that

sort of thing? Of course I know," he added hastily, "you're not that

kind of girl. I--"

He turned and looked at her.

"You know I'm still in love with you, don't you, Elizabeth?"

She returned his gaze frankly.

"I don't see how you can be when you know what you do know."

"I know how you feel now. But I know that people don't go on loving

hopelessly all their lives. You're young. You've got"--he figured

quickly--"you've got about fifty-odd years to live yet, and some of

these days you'll be--not forgetting," he changed, when he saw her quick

movement. "I know you'll not forget him. But remembering and loving are

different."

"I wonder," she said, her eyes on the moon, and full of young tragedy.

"If they are, if one can remember without loving, then couldn't one love

without remembering?"

He stared at her.

"You're too deep for me sometimes," he said. "I'm not subtle, Elizabeth.

I daresay I'm stupid in lots of things. But I'm not stupid about this.

I'm not trying to get a promise, you know. I only want you to know how

things are. I don't want to know why he went away, or why he doesn't

come back. I only want you to face the facts. I'd be good to you," he

finished, in a low tone. "I'd spend my life thinking of ways to make you

happy."

She was touched. She reached down and put her hand on his shoulder.

"You deserve the best, Wallie. And you're asking for a second best. Even

that--I'm just not made that way, I suppose. Fifty years or a hundred,

it would be all the same."

"You'd always care for him, you mean?"

"Yes. I'm afraid so."

When he looked at her her eyes had again that faraway and yet flaming

look which he had come to associate with her thoughts of Dick. She

seemed infinitely removed from him, traveling her lonely road past

loving outstretched hands and facing ahead toward--well, toward fifty

years of spinsterhood. The sheer waste of it made him shudder.

"You're cold, too, Wallie," she said gently. "You'd better go home."

He was about to repudiate the idea scornfully, when he sneezed! She got

up at once and held out her hand.




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