"You're too severe," he cried. "It's true there's such a thing as passion without love. And I'll admit that I, like all men have felt it often—have lied to myself as well as to the woman—and have called it love. But it's also true there's no love without some passion—at least, you couldn't hope to inspire it. And though in your innocence you may think so, you'd not want to have less than all love has to give—if you loved."
Her eyes, large and softly brilliant, were burning into the darkness beyond the open window. "I'm not innocent," she said. "And I try not to be a hypocrite. If I loved, I'd want all."
There was a long silence, she at the window gazing out into the gathering night. Then he said: "You were right. It was not love that made me feel like flight. I can conquer that feeling. Will you let me stay?"
She turned slowly. In the look she fixed on him there was doubt, hesitation. "You've made me a little uneasy—a little afraid."
In his eagerness he sprang up. "Don't!" he cried. "Don't send me away. I'll never speak of love again. You've taught me my lesson."
"I do want you to stay," said she. "It'd seem very lonely here with you gone. For I've come to depend on you as a friend. It hurts to find you seeking your own selfish pleasure under the pretense of a feeling for me."
He winced—not because he felt scandalized by her candor, but because he felt convicted by it. "How well you understand men!" he exclaimed. "Better than they understand themselves."
"In that one way I do," was her reply, an arresting hardness in the deep voice that was usually altogether sweet. These last few days she was understanding a great many things about the relations of men and women—or, perhaps, was letting herself realize that she understood them.
He lowered his eyes, that he might not read her thoughts, that she might not read the same thoughts in his own mind. "You often make me think of the lake out there," said he. "There's the surface one sees at a glance. Then there's a little distance below the surface, that one sees when he looks intently straight down. And then there's fathoms on fathoms where all sorts of strange things—strange thoughts and feelings—lie hid. Sometimes—for an instant—one of them shows or almost shows at the surface."
"When one lives alone a great deal, one gets the habit of living within oneself—don't you think?"