“And I have come to see that you were perfectly right in what you did last night. At first I was wounded.”
“Oh, did I wound you, Alice?” he grieved.
“But afterward I could see that you belonged to them, and not me, and—and I give you up to them. Yes, freely, fully.”
Alice stood there, beautiful, pathetic, austere; and Dan had halted in the spot to which he had advanced, when her eye forbade him to approach nearer. He did not mean to joke, and it was in despair that he cried out: “But which, Alice? There are two of them.”
“Two?” she repeated vaguely.
“Yes; Mrs. Frobisher and Miss Wrayne. You can't give me up to both of them.”
“Both?” she repeated again. She could not condescend to specify; it would be ridiculous, and as it was, she felt her dignity hopelessly shaken. The tears came into her eyes.
“Yes. And neither of them wants me—they haven't got any use for me. Mrs. Frobisher is married already, and Miss Wrayne took the trouble last night to let me feel that, so far as she was concerned, I hadn't made it all right, and couldn't. I thought I had rather a cold parting with you, Alice, but it was quite tropical to what you left me to.” A faint smile, mingled with a blush of relenting, stole into her face, and he hurried on. “I don't suppose I tried very hard to thaw her out. I wasn't much interested. If you must give me up, you must give me up to some one else, for they don't want me, and I don't want them.” Alice's head dropped lover, and he could come nearer now without her seeming to know it. “But why need you give me up? There's really no occasion for it, I assure you.”
“I wished,” she explained, “to show you that I loved you for something above yourself and myself—far above either—”
She stopped and dropped the hand which she had raised to fend him off; and he profited by the little pause she made to take her in his arms without seeming to do so. “Well,” he said, “I don't believe I was formed to be loved on a very high plane. But I'm not too proud to be loved for my own sake; and I don't think there's anything above you, Alice.”