"Background? I don't understand."
"When the real man for you comes along into the foreground of your life——"
"You want me to compare him with you?" she broke in quickly.
"Perhaps that wouldn't be quite fair to him. I've had more opportunities, more experience of the world than your younger lovers are likely to have had; you can't expect quite so much of youth in some ways. But before you commit yourself finally, suppose you ask yourself whether you care for the man more than you have at any time for me; if, in case you married him, you would miss out of your life together certain phases that we have known."
"But of course I shall!" she cried. "What boy do I know that could understand me as you do?"
Upon the naïve egotism of this he made no comment. "I haven't made myself quite clear. Before you decide, go back to our association, go back to all the associations you have had hitherto, and ask if the new one will take the place of all of them. If not—don't."
"You're trying to keep me from marrying someone else because you can't have me, yourself," she accused.
"Do you think that of me, Pat?"
"Oh, no; no! I don't. You know I don't. What makes me so hateful?" She threw herself upon him, pressed her face close to his, turned so that their lips met; then drew back with a questioning look in her eyes. "That was a very white kiss," she murmured discontentedly. "You're so strange to-day."