The Fighting Chance

"I don't know, but I didn't," he said.

"Of course you didn't; you'd known me for about three hours--there on the cliff--"

"But--Quarrier--!"

Over his youthful face a sullen shadow had fallen--flickering, not yet settled. He would not for anything on earth have talked freely to the woman destined to be Quarrier's wife. He had talked too much anyway. Something in her, something about her had loosened his tongue. He had made a plain ass of himself--that was all,--a garrulous ass. And truly it seemed that the girl beside him, even in the starlight, could follow and divine what he had scarcely expressed to himself; or her instincts had taken a shorter cut to forestall his own conclusion.

"Don't think the things you are thinking!" she said in a fierce little voice, leaning toward him.

"What do you mean?" he asked, taken aback.

"You know! Don't! It is unfair--it is--is faithless--to me. I am your friend; why not? Does it make any difference to you whom I marry? Cannot two people remain in accord anyway? Their friendship concerns each other and--nobody else!" She was letting herself go now; she was conscious of it, conscious that impulse and emotion were the currents unloosed and hurrying her onward. And with it all came exhilaration, a faint intoxication, a delicate delight in daring to let go all and trust to impulse and emotions.

"Why should you feel hurt because for a moment you let me see--gave me a glimpse of yourself--of life's battle as you foresee it? What if there is always a reaction from all confidences exchanged? What if that miserable French cynic did say that never was he more alone than after confessing to a friend? He died crazy anyhow. Is not a rare moment of confidence worth the reaction--the subsidence into the armored shell of self? Tell me truly, Mr. Siward, isn't it?"

Breathless, confused, exhilarated by her own rapid voice she bent her face, brilliant with colour, and very sweet; and he looked up into it, expectant, uncertain.

"If such a friendship as ours is to become worth anything to you--to me, why should it trouble you that I know--and am thinking of things that concern you? Is it because the confidence is one-sided? Is it because you have given and I have listened and given nothing in return to balance the account? I do give--interest, deep interest, sympathy if you ask it; I give confidence in return--if you desire it!"

"What can a girl like you need of sympathy?" he said smiling.

"You don't know! you don't know! If heredity is a dark vista, and if you must stare through it all your life, sword in hand, always on your guard, do you think you are the only one?"