"Thank you, Captain Dane," she said in a low voice.
He waited.
"I—am afraid that I am—in love—already—with another man."
He bent his head, quietly; there was no pleading, no asking for a chance, no whining of any species to which the monarch man is so constitutionally predisposed when soft, young lips pronounce the death warrant of his sentimental hopes.
All he said was: "It need not alter anything between us—what I have asked of you."
"It only makes me care the more for our friendship, Captain Dane."
He nodded, studying the pattern in the Shirvan rug under his feet. A procession of symbols representing scorpions and tarantulas embellished one of the rug's many border stripes. His grave eyes followed the procession entirely around the five-by-three bit of weaving. Then he rose, bent over her, took her slim hand in silence, saluted it, and asking if he might call again very soon, went out about his business, whatever it was. Probably the most important business he had on hand just then was to get over his love for Athalie Greensleeve.
For a long while Athalie sat there beside Hafiz considering the world and what it was threatening to do to her; considering man and what he had offered and what he had not offered to do to her.
Distressed because of the pain she had inflicted on Captain Dane, yet proud of the honour done her, she sat thinking, sometimes of Clive, sometimes of Mr. Wahlbaum, sometimes of Doris and Catharine, and of her brother who had gone out to the coast years ago, and from whom she had never heard.