"It wouldn't be wrong—to leave you that way?"
"To me you could do no wrong, Bess."
"Not if I did anything, if I—ran away with another man?"
The listener smiled, until the beardless face was very, very boyish.
"I can't imagine the impossible, Bess."
"But just supposing I should?" insistently. "You'd take me back, no matter what I'd done, and forgive me?"
For a half minute wherein the smile slowly vanished from his face the man did not answer, merely looked at her; then for the first time since they had been speaking his eyes dropped.
"I could forgive you anything, Bess; but to take you back, to have everything go on as before—I am human. I could not."
A moment longer the two remained so, each staring at their feet; then of a sudden, interrupting, the girl laughed, unmusically, hysterically.
"I'm glad you said that, How," she exulted; "glad I compelled you to say it. As you confess, it makes you seem more human. A god shouldn't marry a mortal, you know."