" She pushed him
gently away. "You don't understand. You haven't been through it.
Comfortable people talk like fools about those things. . . . Do
you remember my hands that first evening?"
He reddened and his eyes shifted. "I'm absurdly sensitive about
a woman's hands," he muttered.
She laughed at him. "Oh, I saw--how you couldn't bear to look at
them--how they made you shiver. Well, the hands were
nothing--_nothing_!--beside what you didn't see."
"Lorna, do you love someone else?"
His eyes demanded an honest answer, and it seemed to her his
feeling for her deserved it. But she could not put the answer
into words. She lowered her gaze.
"Then why----" he began impetuously. But there he halted, for he
knew she would not lift the veil over herself, over her past.
"I'm very, very fond of you," she said with depressing
friendliness. Then with a sweet laugh, "You ought to be glad I'm
not able to take you at your word. And you will be glad soon."
She sighed. "What a good time we've had!"
"If I only had a decent allowance, like Fatty!" he groaned.
"No use talking about that. It's best for us to separate best
for us both. You've been good to me--you'll never know how good.
And I can't play you a mean trick. I wish I could be selfish
enough to do it, but I can't."
"You don't love me. That's the reason."
"Maybe it is. Yes, I guess that's why I've got the courage to be
square with you.
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