“I am not quite a fool. Men who are not quite fools either say that I have a great career before me. I have made something of a name as it is, although I may still almost speak of myself as a young man. You shall be proud of me, indeed, I promise you that, if you will only let me serve you. Life is all a game of chances, but if you will take this chance, I do not think that you will regret it. Your lover will not be quite unworthy of your love.”
“I am very, very sorry,” she said, “but you have said the words which must divide us. I did like you, I do like you very much, but we cannot be friends any more.”
“You cannot love me,” he said slowly.
“I cannot love you—and I know we cannot be friends. You are not that kind of man. It would tear your heart to pieces. Better one wrench at once and be done with it. And I am not the kind of woman to accept friendship that I knew was only a mask for love.”
“You cannot love me?” he asked again monotonously, like a man repeating some set formula.
“I cannot love you. I have played with my life in my own way, and as I have played so I will pay. Now, good-by, I know you too well and trust you too well to fear that you will trouble me at all. You will go away, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Jacynth moodily, “I will go away.”
“Thank you, and good-by.” She moved away swiftly, and he stood there staring after her until she disappeared inside the hotel.
Jacynth walked moodily back into the garden and stared sullenly at the bright sky. If the autumn day, so warm that it might have been midsummer, had suddenly changed to winter, it could not have looked colder or more dismal to his eyes. He shrugged his shoulders. “So that’s all over,” he said to himself bitterly; “you have played your stake and you have lost, and now you must remember that it is your duty to play the man and not the fool.” Thrusting his hands into his pockets he began to walk slowly down the garden path, feeling very dull and dizzy, like a man who has had a heavy fall. He was thinking, or trying to think, of things which interested him so deeply once, and which now seemed so strangely uninteresting, when his meditations were interrupted. He found himself confronted by Castleton, who was eying him sympathetically.
“Old man,” said Castleton, “you saved my life once, and though it wasn’t much worth saving, I’m devilish grateful to you all the same. So I’d like to do you a good turn now if I can.”