But a greater force was at work
within her, and she stood her ground.
She drew her hand away. "Not like that, Guy," she said. "I love
you. Yes, I love you. But only as a friend. You--you don't
understand me. How should you? I have grown beyond all your
knowledge of me. I was a girl in the old days--when we played at
love together." A sharp sob rose in her throat, but she stifled
it. "All that is over. I am a woman now. My eyes are
open,--and--the romance is all gone."
He stiffened as if he had been struck, but only for a second. The
next recklessly he laughed. "That is just your way of putting it,"
he said. "Love doesn't change--like that. It either goes out, or
it remains--for good. It is you who don't understand yourself.
You may turn your back on the truth, but you can't alter it. Those
who have once been lovers--and lovers such as you and I--can never
again be only friends. That, if you like, is the impossible.
But--" He paused for a moment, with lifted shoulders, then
abruptly turned to go. "Good-bye!" he said.
"You are going?" she questioned.
He swung on his heel as if irresolute. "Yes, I am going. I am
going back to my cabin, back to my wallowing in the mire. Why not?
Is there anyone who cares the toss of a halfpenny what I do?"
"Yes." Breathlessly she answered him; the words seemed to leap
from her of their own accord, and surely it was hardly of her own
volition that she followed and held his arm, detaining him.
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