She unclasped his hands and drew a little away from him. But he did not lose heart, for though her smile was a wistful one, her eyes were soft with unshed tears, and her face was the face of a woman.
"Douglas," she said, "will you listen to me for a moment? You spoke of those other men, you charged me with heartlessness. Perhaps you were right. What then?"
The brutal selfishness of love and of youth swept from his memory
Strong's broken life and Drexley's despair.
"Nothing," he cried, "so long as you will care for me. I am not your judge. I want you—you, Emily, and your love. To-night I care for nothing else."
She laid her soft fingers upon his eager face, half caressingly, half in repulse.
"I never wished them harm," she said. "I was interested in their work, and to me they were merely units. So they called me heartless. I was only selfish. I let them come to me because I like clever people about me, and society requires just such an antidote. When they made love to me I sent them away or bade them remain as friends. But that does not necessarily mean that I am without a heart."
"I never want to think of them again," he murmured. "All that I want in this world is that you tell me that you care for me."
She looked into his face, eager, passionate, almost beautiful in its intensity, and smiled. Only the smile covered a sigh.
"If I tell you that, Douglas," she said, "will it be kindness, I wonder?
I wonder!"
"Say it, and I will forget everything else in the world," he begged.