“Because it is true.” She paused; the red dyed her cheeks. “What you were told last night were lies—poor lies. You do not ask me to deny them, dear, and so I won’t. Yet, behind those lies, there was a little truth. There is a man, and I cared for him—care for him now and always shall care for him. He has been nothing to me, and never will be; but because he lived, because he and I have met, the hope that you had in your heart that day, can come to nothing. And now—now I have something more to tell you. It is this. You, who can love so finely, must ask for and have love in return. You think you love me, yet because I do not respond you will tire in time of that love. You will realise how bad a bargain you have made, and then you will regret it. Is there not someone”—her voice had grown low and soft—“someone who can and does give you all the love your heart craves for, someone who will be grateful to you for your love, and who will repay a thousandfold? Would not that be better than a long hopeless fight against lovelessness, even—even if you loved her a little less than you believe you love—me? Remember that it would rest with you and not with another, you who are generous, who could not refuse to give when so much is given to you.” Joan’s voice faltered for a moment. “It would be your own heart on which you would have to make the call, Johnny, not on the heart of another. You would have more command over your own heart than you ever could over the heart of another.”
“Joan, what do you mean? What does this mean?”
“I am trying so hard to be plain,” she said almost pitifully.
“Who is this other you are talking about, this other—who loves me?”
She was silent.
“What do you know of her, Joan, this other?”
And still she was silent, for how could she betray Ellice’s secret?
“Tell me,” he said.
“Don’t you know? Can’t you guess?”
His face flushed. A week ago he might have answered, “I cannot guess!” To-day he knew the answer, yet how did Joan know?