She saw him tremble.  “Lenore, I’d better run off in the night,” he said.

Instinctively, with swift, soft violence, she grasped his hands.  Perhaps the moment had come.  She was not afraid, but the suddenness of her extremity left her witless.

“You would not!...  That would be unkind—­not like you at all....  To run off without giving me a chance—­without good-by!...  Promise me you will not.”

“I promise,” he replied, wearily, as if nonplussed by her attitude.  “You said you understood me.  But I can’t understand you.”

She released his hands and turned away.  “I promise—­that you shall understand—­very soon.”

“You feel sorry for me.  You pity me.  You think I’ll only be cannon-fodder for the Germans.  You want to be nice, kind, sweet to me—­to send me away with better thoughts....  Isn’t that what you think?”

He was impatient, almost angry.  His glance blazed at her.  All about him, his tragic face, his sadness, his defeat, his struggle to hold on to his manliness and to keep his faith in nobler thoughts—­these challenged Lenore’s compassion, her love, and her woman’s combative spirit to save and to keep her own.  She quivered again on the brink of betraying herself.  And it was panic alone that held her back.

“Kurt—­I think—­presently I’ll give you the surprise of your life,” she replied, and summoned a smile.

How obtuse he was!  How blind!  Perhaps the stress of his emotion, the terrible sense of his fate, left him no keenness, no outward penetration.  He answered her smile, as if she were a child whose determined kindness made him both happy and sad.

“I dare say you will,” he replied.  “You Andersons are full of surprises....  But I wish you would not do any more for me.  I am like a dog.  The kinder you are to me the more I love you....  How dreadful to go away to war—­to violence and blood and death—­to all that’s brutalizing—­with my heart and mind full of love for a noble girl like you!—­If I come to love you any more I’ll not be a man.”

To Lenore he looked very much of a man, so tall and lithe and white-faced, with his eyes of fire, his simplicity, and his tragic refusal of all that was for most men the best of life.  Whatever his ideal, it was magnificent.  Lenore had her chance then, but she was absolutely unable to grasp it.  Her blood beat thick and hot.  If she could only have been sure of herself!  Or was it that she still cared too much for herself?  The moment had not come.  And in her tumult there was a fleeting fury at Dorn’s blindness, at his reverence of her, that he dare not touch her hand.  Did he imagine she was stone?

“Let us say good night,” she said.  “You are worn out.  And I am—­not just myself.  To-morrow we’ll be—­good friends....  Father will take you to your room.”

Dorn pressed the hand she offered, and, saying good-night, he followed her to the hall.  Lenore tapped on the door of her father’s study, then opened it.