"What is the matter, Jack?" she breathed. "Why do you look at me so steadily?"
He ought to have let her go then; he hesitated, wondering which Jack she supposed him to be; and before he realised it her arms were on his shoulders, her mouth nearer to his.
"Jack, you frighten me! What is it?"
"N-nothing," he continued to stammer.
"Yes, there is. Does your—your wife suspect—anything——"
"No, she doesn't," said Duane grimly, trying to free himself without seeming to. "I've got an appointment——"
But the girl said piteously: "It isn't—Geraldine, is it?"
"What!"
"You—you admitted that she attracted you—for a little while.... Oh, I did forgive you, Jack; truly I did with all my miserable heart! I was so fearfully unhappy—I would have done anything." ... Her face flushed scarlet. "And I—did.... But you do love me, don't you?" And the next moment her lips were on his with a sob.
Duane reached back and quietly unclasped her fingers. Then very gently he forced her to a seat on a great fallen log. Still looking up at him, droopingly pathetic in contrast to her gay début with him, she naïvely slipped up the mask over her forehead and passed her hand across her pretty blue eyes. Sylvia Quest!