"Not consciously. But he'd create the wrong impression—we can never see our own faults—and he would blame her, of course. But the man who has made one woman unhappy would make another unhappy, Mary."
Mary was shaken.
"Please don't put it so—inevitably. Roger hasn't any claim on me whatever."
"Hasn't he? Oh, Mary, hasn't he?"
There was hope in his voice, and she shrank from it.
"No," she said, gently, "he is just—my friend. As yet I can't believe evil of him. But I don't love him. I don't love anybody—I don't want any man in my life."
She thought that she meant it. She thought it, even while her heart was crying out in defense of the man he had maligned.
"How can one know the truth of such a thing?" she went on, unsteadily. "One can only believe in one's friends."
"Mary," eagerly, "you've known Poole only for a few months. You've known me always. I can give you a devotion equal to anybody's. Why not drop all this contrariness—and come to me?"
"Why not?" she asked herself. Roger Poole was obscure, and destined to be obscure. More than that, there would always be people like Porter who would question his past. "It is the whispers that kill," Roger had said. And people would always whisper.