"There was nothing in it that ought to have come between you and me?... Besides, if such an ephemeral thought ever drifted through my idle mind, I knew on reflection that you and I could never be destined to marry, even if such sentiment ever inclined us. I knew it and accepted it without troubling to analyse the reasons. I had no desire to invade your world—less desire now that I have penetrated it professionally and know a little about it.
"It was not jealousy, Clive."
He swung around, bent swiftly and pressed his lips to her hands. And she abandoned them to him with all her heart and soul in an overwhelming passion of purest emotion.
"I couldn't stand it, Clive," she said, "when I heard you were at your hotel alone.... And all the unhappiness I had heard of—your married life—I—I couldn't stand it; I couldn't let you remain there all alone!
"And when you came here to-night, and I saw in your face how these four years had altered you—how it had been with you—I wanted you back—to let you know I am sorry—to let you know I care for the man who has known unhappiness, as I cared for the boy who had known only happiness.
"Do you understand, Clive? Do you, dear? Don't you see what I see?—a man standing all alone by a closed door behind which his hopes lie dead.
"Clive, that is where you came to me, offering sympathy and friendship. That is where I come to you in my turn, offering whatever you care to take of me—if there is in me anything that may comfort you."
He bent and laid his lips to her hands again, remaining so, curbed before her; and she looked down at his lean and powerful head and shoulders, and saw the hint of grey edging the crisp, dark hair, and the dark stain of tropic suns, that never could be effaced.
So far no passion, other than innocent, had she ever known for any man,—nothing of lesser emotion, nothing physical. And, had she thought of it at all she