"I don't know," gasped Chris. "Only I know that he would never understand. He would think—he would think—"
"He would think that we have been—pals—for as long as we have known each other," said Bertrand soothingly. "He knows it already. It is true, is it not?"
But Chris's eyes had been opened too suddenly and tragically. Her sense of proportion was still undeveloped. "Yes, but he would never see it. You could never explain to him so that he would understand. He would think I had been deceiving him. He would think—Bertie, he would think"—her eyes dilated, and she drew in her breath sharply—"that—that you and I ought not to be friends any longer. Oh, don't tell him—please don't tell him. Indeed I am right. He trusts you, and—and he trusts me. But he wouldn't trust either of us any longer if he knew."
"Christine! Christine!"
"It is true," she asserted feverishly. "You don't know him as I do. Oh no, he has never been hard to me. But he could be hard. And he wouldn't forgive me—if he thought I had been hiding anything. Bertie, Bertie, you won't do it? Say you won't do it!"
"I do nothing without your consent," Bertrand answered quietly. "But I think that it is a mistake. I think—"
"Oh, thank you!" she broke in earnestly. "I know I can rely upon you to keep your word. I can, can't I?"
He smiled at a question which he would have borne from no other. "Until death, Christine," he said.
Her hands fell away from his arm. She was shaking all over. "I know I'm foolish," she said. "I can't help it. I was made so. And when Trevor begins to ask questions—" She broke off nervously. "What is that?"
A leisurely footfall sounded in the hall, a quiet hand pressed the electric switch by the door, and the room was flooded with light.