"Don't," she said softly. "That would only be smashing what is left of the ideal. I think I couldn't bear that."
"God in Heaven!" he said, under his breath. "And you've been calling this friendship! Ardea, girl, it's love!"
She shook her head slowly.
"No," she rejoined gravely. "At one time I thought—I was afraid—that it might be. But now I know it isn't."
"How do you know it?"
"Because love, as I think of it, is stronger than the traditions, stronger than anything else in the world. And the traditions are still with me. I admit the existence of the social pale, and as long as I live within it I have a right to demand certain things of the man who marries me."
"And love doesn't demand anything," he said, putting the remainder of the thought into words for her. "You are right. If I could clear myself with a word, I should not say it."
"Why?"
"Because your—loyalty, let us call it, is too precious to be exchanged for anything else you could give me in place of it—esteem, respect, and all the other well-behaved and virtuous bestowals."
"But the loyalty is based on the belief that you are trying to earn the well-behaved approvals," she continued.