She made a little movement towards him, but she did not turn.  “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.  “But I’m going to ask of you something that you won’t like—­at all.”

“Well, what is it?” he said.

“I want you—­” she paused, then turned and resolutely faced him—­“I want you to be—­just friends with me again,” she said.

His eyes looked straight into hers.  “In public you mean?” he said.

“In private too,” she answered.

“For how long?” Swiftly he asked the question, his eyes still holding hers with a certain mastery of possession.

She made a slight gesture of pleading.  “Until you know me better,” she said.

His brows went up.  “That’s not a business proposition, is it?  You don’t really expect me to agree to that.  Now do you?”

“Ah!  But you’ve got to understand,” she said rather piteously.  “I’m not in the least the sort of woman you think I am.  I’m not—­Dick, I’m not—­a specially good woman.”

She spoke the words with painful effort, her eyes wavered before his.  But in a moment, without hesitation, he had leapt to the rescue.

“My darling, don’t tell me that!  I can see what you are.  I know!  I know!  I don’t want your own valuation.  I won’t listen to it.  It’s the one point on which your opinion has no weight whatever with me.  Please don’t say any more about it!  It’s you that I love—­just as you are.  If you were one atom less human, you wouldn’t be you, and my love—­our love—­might never have been.”

She sighed.  “It would have saved a lot of trouble if it hadn’t, Dick.”

“Don’t be silly!” he said.  “Is there anything else that matters half as much?”

She was silent, but her look was dubious.  He drew suddenly close to her, and slipped his hand through her arm.

“Is there anything else that really matters at all, Juliet?  Tell me!  I’ve got to know.  Does—­Robin matter?”

She started at the question.  It was obviously unexpected.  “No!  Of course not!” she said.

“Thank you,” he said steadily.  “I loved you for that before you said it.”

She laid her hand upon his and held it.  “That’s—­one of the things I love you for, Dick,” she said, with eyes downcast.  “You are so—­splendidly—­loyal.”

“Sweetheart!” he said softly.  “There’s no virtue in that.”

Her brows were slightly drawn.  “I think there is.  Anyway it appeals to me tremendously.  You would stick to Robin—­whatever the cost.”

“Well, that, of course!” he said.  “I flatter myself I am necessary to Robin.  But with Jack it is otherwise.  I’ve kicked him out.”

“Dick!” She looked at him in sharp amazement.

He smiled, a thin-lipped smile.  “Yes.  It had to be.  I’ve put up with him long enough.  I told him so last night.”

“You—­quarrelled?” said Juliet.

“No.  We didn’t quarrel.  I gave him his marching orders, that’s all.”