"It's you that don't understand, Selma," cried he. "You don't realize how wonderful you are—how much you reveal of yourself at once. I was all but engaged to another woman when I saw you. I've been fighting against my love for you—fighting against the truth that suddenly came to me that you were the only woman I had ever seen who appealed to and aroused and made strong all that is brave and honest in me. Selma, I need you. I am not infatuated. I am clearer-headed than I ever was in my life. I need you. You can make a man of me."
She was regarding him with a friendly and even tender sympathy. "I understand now," she said. "I thought it was simply the ordinary outburst of passion. But I see that it was the result of your struggle with yourself about which road to take in making a career."
If she had not been absorbed in developing her theory she might have seen that Davy was not altogether satisfied with this analysis of his feelings. But he deemed it wise to hold his peace.
"You do need some one—some woman," she went on. "And I am anxious to help you all I can. I couldn't help you by marrying you. To me marriage means——" She checked herself abruptly. "No matter. I can help you, I think, as a friend. But if you wish to marry, you should take some one in your own class—some one who's in sympathy with you. Then you and she could work it out together—could help each other. You see, I don't need you—and there's nothing in one-sided marriages.... No, you couldn't give me anything I need, so far as I can see."
"I believe that's true," said Davy miserably.
She reflected, then continued: "But there's Jane Hastings. Why not marry her? She is having the same sort of struggle with herself. You and she could help each other. And you're, both of you, fine characters. I like each of you for exactly the same reasons.... Yes—Jane needs you, and you need her." She looked at him with her sweet, frank smile like a breeze straight from the sweep of a vast plateau. "Why, it's so obvious that I wonder you and she haven't become engaged long ago. You ARE fond of her, aren't you?"
"Oh, Selma," cried Davy, "I LOVE you. I want YOU."
She shook her head with a quaint, fascinating expression of positiveness. "Now, my friend," said she, "drop that fancy. It isn't sensible. And it threatens to become silly." Her smile suddenly expanded into a laugh. "The idea of you and me married—of ME married to YOU! I'd drive you crazy. No, I shouldn't stay long enough for that. I'd be of on the wings of the wind to the other end of the earth as soon as you tried to put a halter on me."
He did not join in her laugh. She rose. "You will think again before you go in with those people—won't you, David?" she said, sober and earnest.
"I don't care what becomes of me," he said boyishly.