“I’m afraid he won’t, Anne.”

“Don’t imagine I ever thought he would.  He never did anything to make me think it for a minute, really.”

“Are you quite sure he didn’t?”

“Quite sure.  I made it all up out of my head.  My silly head.  I don’t care what you think of me so long as you don’t think it was Jerry’s fault.  I should go on caring for him whatever he did or didn’t do.”

“I know you would.  But it’s possible—­”

“To care for two people and marry one of them, no matter which?  It isn’t possible for me.  If I can’t have the person I want I won’t have anybody.”

“It isn’t wise, Anne.  I tell you I could make you care for me.  I know all about you.  I know how you think and how you feel.  I understand you better than Jerrold does.  You’d be happy with me and you’d be safe.”

“It’s no use.  I’d rather be unhappy and in danger if it was with Jerrold.”

“You’ll be unhappy and in danger without him.”

“I don’t care.  Besides, I shan’t be.  I shall work.  You’ll work, too.  It’ll be so exciting that you’ll soon forget all about me.”

“You know I shan’t.  And I’ll never give you up, unless Jerrold gets you.”

“Eliot—­I only told you about Jerrold, because I thought you ought to know.  So that you mightn’t think it was anything in you.”

“It isn’t something in me, then?  Tell me—­if it hadn’t been for Jerry, do you think you might have cared for me?”

“Yes.  I do.  I quite easily might.  And I think it would be a jolly good thing if I could, now.  Only I can’t.  I can’t.”

“Poor little Anne.”

“Does it comfort you to think I’d have cared if it hadn’t been for Jerry?”

“It does, very much.”

“Eliot—­you’re the only person I can talk to about him.  Do you mind telling me whether he said that to you, or whether you just guessed it.”

“What?”

“Why, that he wouldn’t—­ever—­”

“I asked him, Anne, because I had to know.  And he told me.”

“I thought he told you.”

“Yes, he told me.  But I’m a cad for letting you think he didn’t care for you.  I believe he did, or that he would have cared—­awfully—­if my father hadn’t died just then.  Your being in the room that day upset him.  If it hadn’t been for that—­”

“Yes, but there was that.  It was like he was when Binky died and he couldn’t stand Yearp.  Don’t you remember how he wouldn’t let me go with him to see Yearp because he said he didn’t want me mixed up with it.  Well—­I’ve been mixed up, that’s all.”

“Still, Anne, I’m certain he’d have cared—­if that’s any comfort to you.  You didn’t make it up out of your dear little head.  We all thought it.  Father thought it.  I believe he wanted it.  If he’d only known!”

She thought:  If he’d only known how he had hurt her, he who had never hurt anybody in all his beautiful life.