"Are you sorry I told you I loved you? Would it be easier if I had not?"
"Probably. But I am not sorry! Love can give happiness even when one is denied the expression of it."
"I never intended to tell you. I was afraid if I did you would leave me at once."
"So I should if you were not—you. But I should think myself a fool if I did not make an attempt to achieve the second best. I may fail, but I shall try. And life is made up of compromises."
"You are more certain of smashing the Trusts," she said with the humour which never bore repression for long. "In dealing with methodical scoundrels you know at least where you are. A man and woman never can be too certain of what five minutes will bring forth. That ends it. We never will discuss the question again until it comes up for the last time—if it does. I do not mean that I shall not tell you again that I love you, for I shall. I have no desire that you shall forget it. I mean that we will not discuss possibilities again, nor give expression to the passionate regret we both must feel. Is it a compact?"
"I will keep my part in it. I promise to be good. I have prided myself on my intelligence. I am not going to disgrace it by ruining the only happiness I ever shall have. I love you, and I will prove it by making your part as easy as I can, and by giving you all the happiness I am permitted to give you."
He leaned toward her for the first time, but he did not touch her.
"And I promise you this, my darling," he said softly: "if you ever should be in great trouble and should send for me—as of course you would do—I will take you in my arms then and forget myself. Now, change seats with me and I will row you part of the way home; I shall get out a half-mile from the hotel. There really was no reason why you should have made me walk nearly the entire length of the lake."
"I had fancied you in this particular part of the forest, and I wanted to find you here."
"That is so like a woman," he said humorously. "But all of us make an occasional attempt to realize a dream, I suppose."