"No. You can care for yourself anywhere, Ladygray," he repeated. "But I am quite sure that it will be less troublesome for me to see that no insults are offered you than for you to resent those insults when they come. Tête Jaune is full of Quades," he added.
The smile was gone from her face when she turned to him. Her blue eyes were filled with a tense anxiety.
"I had almost forgotten that man," she whispered. "And you mean that you would fight for me—again?"
"A thousand times."
The colour grew deeper in her cheeks. "I read something about you once that I have never forgotten, John Aldous," she said. "It was after you returned from Thibet. It said that you were largely made up of two emotions—your contempt for woman and your love of adventure; that it would be impossible for you not to see a flaw in one, and that for the other—physical excitement—you would go to the ends of the earth. Perhaps it is this—your desire for adventure—that makes you want to go with me to Tête Jaune?"
"I am beginning to believe that it will be the greatest adventure of my life," he replied, and something in his quiet voice held her silent. He rose to his feet, and stood before her. "It is already the Great Adventure," he went on. "I feel it. And I am the one to judge. Until to-day I would have staked my life that no power could have wrung from me the confession I am going to make to you voluntarily. I have laughed at the opinion the world has held of me. To me it has all been a colossal joke. I have enjoyed the hundreds of columns aimed at me by excited women through the press. They have all asked the same question: Why do you not write of the good things in women instead of always the bad? I have never given them an answer. But I answer you now—here. I have not picked upon the weaknesses of women because I despise them. Those weaknesses—the destroying frailties of womankind—I have driven over rough-shod through the pages of my books because I have always believed that Woman was the one thing which God came nearest to creating perfect. I believe they should be perfect. And because they have not quite that perfection which should be theirs I have driven the cold facts home as hard as I could. I have been a fool and an iconoclast instead of a builder. This confession to you is proof that you have brought me face to face with the greatest adventure of all."
The colour in her cheeks had centred in two bright spots. Her lips formed words which came slowly, strangely.
"I guess—I understand," she said. "Perhaps I, too, would have been that kind of an iconoclast—if I could have put the things I have thought into written words." She drew a deep breath, and went on, her eyes full upon him, speaking as if out of a dream. "The Great Adventure—for you. Yes; and perhaps for both."
Her hands were drawn tightly to her breast. Something about her as she stood there, her back to the table, drew John Aldous to her side, forced the question from his lips: "Tell me, Ladygray—why are you going to Tête Jaune?"
In that same strange way, as if her lips were framing words beyond their power to control, she answered: