"You don't know very much about men, Jennifer," he said.
Jennifer felt sharply flung back on herself. She had expected anything but this.
"I—I—perhaps not," she stammered.
He turned on the log and took her hands.
"We are not like that, Jennifer," he said. "When we want a thing we go on trying until we get it. At least, most of us do. I do."
His voice was very quiet, very convincing. It made Jennifer feel more helpless than she had done in all her life. He lifted her hands to his lips; kissed them, and let them go.
"I will do you all the reverence you deserve," he said. "But I will not let you go out of my life. Did you really ever think I would?"
"Oh," she said, feeling the tingling in her hands. "That is all wrong. We have to sacrifice something"
"I have no objection. I am willing to sacrifice anything—so long as it is not you—or myself."
There was more than a suspicion of raillery about him now. He was humourously humouring her, just as he did Jack. She sprang up, struggling for her self-restraint. For her heart was fighting with Dick against her.
"Oh," she cried. "We must end this now—for altogether. I can't. I never can. I"
He was on his feet beside her, and his smile hurt her.
"Do you think you can end it?" he asked. "You? I have got to give you pain yet, Jennifer, and I have got to give myself much more. But that will not end it. And when this wretched business is over and you see what I have done you, that will not end it. I know you better, and I know myself."
She felt his eyes on her, but she could not lift her own.
"Poor little girl," he said. "Don't fret any more. We'll talk of this again when I come to your own house."
He took her cold hand gently.
"Good-night," he said. "The matter is in my hands more than yours. Don't grieve yourself about it."
Then he left her, and she watched him go down the white path of moonlight to his own tent. And she felt utterly
