"I tell you I'm afraid of everybody."
She stopped by the rail, and looked towards the west.
"To me happiness seems such a brittle thing that any one might break it. And men—forgive me!—men generally have such clumsy hands."
He leaned on the rail beside her, turning himself towards her.
"You don't mean to say that you think Isaacson could ever break our happiness, even if he wished to?"
"Why not?"
"Don't you understand me at all?"
There was in his voice a tremor of deep feeling.
"Do you think," he went on, "that a man who is worth anything at all would allow even his dearest friend to come between him and the woman whom he loved and who was his? Do you think that I would allow any one, woman or man, to come between me and you?"
"Are you sure you wouldn't?"