"I was afraid, don't you see," said she, "that if the incentive was suddenly taken away from him—he might go to pieces. And I was fond of him, and I am proud to think that he has made good for my sake, and the letters.... Oh, Billy, it's a dreadful mess. My letters to him have been rather warm, I am afraid."
"Damn!" said McAllen.
"Damn!" said Miss Tennant.
"If he would have gone to pieces before this," said McAllen, "why not now?—after you tell him, I mean."
"Why not?" said she dismally. "But if he does, Billy, I can only be dreadfully sorry. I'm certainly not going to wreck our happiness just to keep him on the war-path."
"But you'll not be weak, Dolly?"
"How!—weak?"
"He'll be very sad and miserable—you won't be carried away? You won't, upon the impulse of the moment, feel that it is your duty to go on saving him?... If that should happen, Dolly, I should go to pieces."
"Must I tell him," she said, "that I never really cared? He will think me such a—a liar. And I'm not a liar, Billy, am I? I'm just unlucky."