"But I am perfectly certain of myself now!"
"Only prove it, darling. Be frank with me. Who in the world loves you as I do, Geraldine? Who desires happiness for you as I do? What have I in life besides you and Scott?... And lately, dearest—I must speak as I feel—something—some indefinable constraint seems to have grown between you and me—something—I don't exactly know what—that threatens our intimate understanding——"
"No, there is nothing!"
"Be honest with me, dear. What is it?"
The girl lay silent for a while, then:
"I don't know myself. I have been—worried. It may have been that."
"Worried about yourself, you poor lamb?"
"A little.... And a little about Duane."
"But, darling, if Duane loves you, that is all cleared up, isn't it?"
"Yes.... But for a long time he and Rosalie made me perfectly wretched.... I didn't know I was in love with him, either.... And I couldn't sleep very much, and I—I simply couldn't tell you how unhappy they were making me—and I—sometimes—now and then—in fact, very often, I—formed the custom of—doing what I ought not to have done—to steady my nerves—in fact, I simply let myself go—badly."