His eyes lifted with an agonized question in them.
She flushed, glanced away, glanced at him again with the old, sweet expression of childlike innocence which had so often made him wonder whether it was merely a mannerism, or was a trick, or was indeed a beam from a pure soul. "I'm foolish still—in certain ways," she said significantly.
"And you always intend to be?" suggested he with a forced smile.
"Oh—yes," replied she—positively enough, yet it somehow had not the full force of her simple short statements in the former days.
He believed her. Perhaps because he wished to believe, must believe, would have been driven quite mad by disbelief. Still, he believed. As yet she was good. But it would not last much longer. With him—or with some other. If with him, then certainly afterward with another—with others. No matter how jealously he might guard her, she would go that road, if once she entered it. If he would have her for his very own he must strengthen her, not weaken her, must keep her "foolish still—in certain ways."
He said: "There's nothing in the other sort of life."
"That's what they say," replied she, with ominous irritation. "Still—some girls—lots of girls seem to get on mighty well without being so terribly particular."
"You ought to see them after a few years."
"I'm only twenty-one," laughed she. "I've got lots of time before I'm old. . . . You haven't—married?"
"No," said he.