Tabs guessed the way the ground lay and went back to the question with which he had started. "What on earth do you see in him? That's what I can't make out."
She kept him waiting for his answer. While he waited, like sunshine struggling through cloud, amused happiness fought its way into her expression. When she turned, she met his gaze with complete candor. She was again a woman of the world. "What do I see in him? Not much—only a makeshift, a second best. Only a man who needs me for the moment because he's lost his direction. You remember our conversation of this afternoon about having to feel that you were needed. He gives me that feeling, so I'm grateful. That's why I have to have him."
"Are you so lonely as to stoop—well, to steal to get it?"
He was sorry he had asked it. She bit her lip in an effort to keep back the tears and to force herself to go on brightly smiling. "Yes, as lonely as all that," she nodded; "so lonely that it's almost a joke."
"No joke." He was at a loss what to say. "But you have friends. You go everywhere. You——"
"Friends!" she interrupted, laughing with the high-pitched note of breaking nerves. "What are friends? People to whom you say, 'How d'you do?' here and 'How d'you do?' there, every one of whom can do without you. I want some one who can't do without me for a second—— No joke, you said. But it is almost a joke to be young, and eager, and good-looking, and to know how to dress, and to be so willing to love, and to live in the world just once, and to hear the world go by you laughing, and to desire so much," she paused for breath, "and to want to give so much that no one is willing to accept. If one didn't laugh over it, it would be more than one could stand. If one didn't treat it as a joke——"
He caught her hands. "Steady, Mrs. Lockwood. Stop laughing at once. There's nothing to laugh about. You're nearly over the edge."
She stared at him with wide eyes, filled with panic, while little ripples of laughter kept escaping from her, which she did her best to suppress.
"Now, listen to me," he continued quietly: "You're not exceptional. You've been expressing something that there's not a man or woman that hasn't felt. I feel it when I realize that I may lose