“If we could be just friends,” she said.

“Well, I’m quite willing to be friends.”  He laughed into her eyes.  “Why so distressful?  Don’t you like the prospect?”

She drew his hand down into her lap and held it between her own, looking gravely down at it.  “Dick!” she said.

His smile passed.  “Well, dear?  What is it?  You’re not going to be afraid of me?”

She did not answer him.  “I want you to leave me free a little longer,” she said.

“But you are not free now,” he said.

She threw him a brief, half-startled glance.  “I don’t mean that,” she said rather haltingly.  “I mean I want you—­not to ask any promise of me—­not to insist upon any bond between us—­not to—­not to—­expect a formal engagement—­until,—­well, until—­”

“Until you are ready to marry me,” he suggested quietly.

A quick tremor went through her.  “That won’t be for a long time,” she said.

“How long?” he said.

“I don’t know.  Dick.  I haven’t the least idea.  I had almost made up my mind never to marry at all.”

“Really?” he said.  “Do you know, so had I. But I changed it the moment I met you.  When did you change yours?”

She laughed, but without much mirth.  “I’m not sure that—­”

“No, don’t you say that to me!” he interrupted.  “It’s not cricket.  You are—­quite sure, though you rather wish you weren’t.  Isn’t that the position?  Honestly now!”

“Honestly,” she said, “I can’t be engaged to you yet.”

“All right,” he said unexpectedly.  “You needn’t call it that if you don’t want to.  Facts are facts.  We may not be engaged, but we are—­permanently—­attached.  We’ll leave it at that.”

Again swiftly she glanced towards him.  “No, but, Dick—­”

“Yes, but, Juliet—­” His hand moved suddenly, imprisoning both of hers.  “You can’t get away,” he said, speaking very rapidly, “any more than I can.  If you put the whole world between us, we shall still belong to each other.  That is irrevocable.  It isn’t your doing, and it isn’t mine.  It’s a Power above and beyond us both.  We can’t help ourselves.”

He spoke with fierce earnestness, a depth of concentration, that gripped her just as his music had gripped her the night before.  She sat motionless, bound by the same spell that had bound her then.  She did not want to meet his eyes, but they drew irresistibly.  In the end she did so.

For a space not reckoned by time she surrendered herself to a mastery that would not be denied.  She met the kindling flame of his worship, and was strangely awed and humbled thereby.  She knew now beyond all question that this man was not as most men.  He came to her with the first, untainted offering of his love.  No other woman had been before her in that inner sanctuary which he now flung wide for her to enter.  There was a purity, a primitive simplicity, about his passion which made her realize