"Even friendship fails when its self-esteem is flouted. . . . You are left alone," Lanyard obstinately pursued, "but for me. And for every friend you have lost, you have found an enemy—my enemies. These good haters of mine will resort to every expedient to poison your mind against me, while to me they will come saying, 'Do as we bid you or prepare yourself to see her suffer.' Conceive me mad enough to tell them to go to the devil: the next time we find ourselves conspicuously placed in public, a hand falls on my shoulder, I your husband am arrested on a trumped-up charge. Assume that I clear myself: still the disgrace remains, the shame. And I its cause. . . . No! never ask me to condemn you to a life like that."
He sat brooding, in a silence which she respected for a little, watching him with shrewd vision all the while.
"Something has happened," she said at length, "to make you think such things."
"You are right." He nodded sadly: "I have come to my senses. These months I have spent in almost daily association with you have been the happiest of my life. I have been too happy . . . They can't continue: I love you too well."
The plumed fan was arrested, the woman's eyes grew wide and dark, her breathing quickened. "What do you propose?"
"I think you must know . . ."
"Tell me!"
He entreated her with haggard eyes. "Since we may not marry, what else can I do but go my way?"
"No!" she impatiently countered. "There is something more in your mind than you have told me."
"Neither there nor in my heart."