"Jim, I can't tell him. I'm afraid! ... Something happened once.... I was scarcely eighteen——" She suddenly clung to him, pressing her face convulsively against his shoulder. He could feel the shiver passing over her.
"Tell me," he said.
"Not now.... There doesn't seem to be any way of letting you understand.... I was not yet eighteen. I never dreamed of—of love—between you and me.... And Oswald fascinated me. He does now. He always will. There is something about him that draws me, influences me, stirs me deeply—deeply——"
She turned, looked at him, flung one arm around his neck:
"Will you let me tell you this and still understand? It's a—a different kind of affection.... But it's deep, powerful—there are bonds that hold me—that I can't break—dare not.... Always he was attractive to me—a strange, sensitive, unhappy boy.... And then—something happened."
"Will you tell me what?"
"Oh, Jim, it involves a question of honour.... I can't betray confidence.... Let me tell you something. Did you know that Oswald, ever since you and he were boys together, cared more for your good opinion than for anything else in the world?"
"That's strange."
"He is strange. He has told me that, as a boy, one of the things that most deeply hurt him was that he was never invited to your house. And I can see that the fact that dad never took any notice of his father mortified him bitterly."
"What has this to do with you and me, Steve?"