"All this," broke in Grange, "is what you promised never to speak of?"
"Yes," she admitted recklessly. "But it is what you ought to know—what you must know—before you go any further."
"It will make no difference to me," he observed. "It is quite obvious that she never cared for him in the smallest degree. Why, my dear girl, she hates the man!"
Daisy gave vent to a sigh of exasperation. "When you come to talk about women's feelings, Blake, you make me tired. You will never be anything but a great big booby in that respect as long as you live."
Grange became silent. He never argued with Daisy. She had always had the upper hand. He watched her as she sat down again, her pretty face in the glow of the fire; but though fully aware of the fact, she would not look at him.
"She is a dear girl, and you are not half good enough for her," she said, stooping a little to the blaze.
"I know that," he answered bluntly. "I wasn't good enough for you, either, but you would have had me—once."
She made a dainty gesture with one shoulder. "That also was aeons ago.
Why disturb that poor old skeleton?"
He did not answer, but he continued to watch her steadily with eyes that held an expression of dumb faithfulness—like the eyes of a dog.
Daisy was softly and meditatively poking the fire. "If you marry her, Blake," she said, "you will have to be enormously good to her. She isn't the sort of girl to be satisfied with anything but the best."