"What do you mean?"
"Don't you see how easily I might play up to you? Do you think it would be very difficult for an actress like me to love you 'with my whole soul' and win you altogether on my own terms?"
"You mean," Peter flashed at her, "that you might easily pretend."
"It would not be difficult," she said, a little sadly.
Vivette was feeling unlike herself. She was now unselfishly solicitous for Peter. She saw how helpless he was, restless and curious of life, ever more firmly held by one idea. She pictured him falling to some woman, hot and unscrupulous, who would coarsely tear the veil he fastidiously desired to lift, and for ever destroy for him the nobility of passion.
But Peter cut into her thoughts.
"Are you changing your mind?" he asked abruptly.
"No, Peter. I am only thinking."
"Then it is good-bye."
He moved towards the door. Vivette saw him passing out of her keeping. She saw him stumbling forward to disillusion and possible disgust. She could not let him go like that. She was zealous that his adventure should not end wholly in disaster.