“It is I—Dan,” he told her.
Maisie made no effort to rise. She knew she was unequal to the effort. “I—I came—to see if you—cared to come home, Dan,” she said with difficulty. “Tamea wrote—asked me to come and get you. It has been very hard for me to do this, Dan. Perhaps you can understand why.”
He came and took her hand in both of his, but made no movement toward a more affectionate greeting. He was not quite equal to such disloyalty so soon, even though at sight of Maisie his heart thrilled wildly. “I can understand your reluctance to running after any man, Maisie,” he answered her. “Least of all myself.”
“This situation is perfectly amazing. I cannot, even now, understand why I have come here, Dan.”
“Perhaps it would be just as well not to try to understand some things, Maisie,” he pleaded. “Do you think it is possible for us to take up our lives where they were when we saw each other last? You know all about me, of course.”
“Mark Mellenger was at some pains to attempt a long, scientific and, at times, reasonable, defense of masculine weaknesses in general and of yours in particular. Somehow, Dan, I cannot feel that you have been either weak or wicked. It—it—just happened. I cannot conceive that you would ever be less than a gentleman.”
He bowed his head. “I have tried to be that, Maisie, although today I do not feel that I have succeeded. But I cannot do otherwise than leave Tamea. I do not think it would have occurred to me to leave her, no matter how bitter the price of staying, but—she willed it otherwise. We have parted without bitterness; I want you to know that so long as I live she shall remain a holy and tender memory.”
“You love her?” Maisie choked on the query.
“I love her as one loves a beautiful and lovable child; for the nobility of soul she possesses I feel a tremendous reverence.”
“I understand—being a woman. You have entertained for me something of that same affection, I think. Well, it is no fault of yours, is it, if you mistook infatuation for love?”