She shrank, and tried to smile, and shook her head.
"Then it'll be I who'll have to do it." He tried to assume a cheerful manner. "But I can't give him your reason about being engaged to me. If it were true, which it isn't, it wouldn't be generous. If I carry any message, the only honorable thing for me to do is to inform him of everything."
"Of everything?" she questioned.
"Yes, of everything. I must tell him where the
trouble lies and give him his chance to be frank with you. Only when that is done, shall I be free to do my utmost to win you for myself."
She took his hands and drew herself up to him. "Do what you like, Tabs. As long as I know that I've not lost you," her voice became small and almost happy, "I'm content."
She was tiptoeing against him. The next thing he knew he was kissing her warm red mouth.
III
She was gone. He had watched her from the steps until she had reached the end of the Square where the swirl of passing traffic had engulfed her. At the last moment she had looked back and smiled. For some minutes after she had vanished, he had stood there recalling the way in which her brave little figure had tripped out of sight among the blustering March sunshine and shadows. A child, he thought, impulsive and lacking in perspective, with a child's alacrity for drying its tears and believing in a future happiness. How would she regard this morning years hence in the after-glow of experience? Would she find nothing in its calamities but foolishness? And what relation would he himself bear to her when she had arrived at that stoical calm?
He reëntered the house. In the room where they had been together the fragrance of her presence still lingered. The chair was pushed back, just as she had risen from it to lift her warm, red lips to his. How smooth they were! Again like a child's!