But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping the development of the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him, was so desirable that he did not dare to contemplate it unless it promised realization.

“Oh,” he broke out, “you won’t really do it.  Your family will object, or something.  Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see you again.”

“You are still going away to-night?”

“I must.”

She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes her head at the foolish plans of a child.

“I thought I was going,” he said, weakly.

“Why?”

He groaned, but did not answer.

She thought, “Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they would not make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to say that they do want it.”  Aloud she said: 

“You must tell me what’s the matter.”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have all afternoon.”

“That’s it—­we haven’t all eternity.”

“Oh, eternity,” said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the hand.  “Who wants eternity?  ’Since we must die how bright the starry track,’ you know.”

“No; what is that?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Oh.”

After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence.  Ben was seeing a new aspect of Newport—­bare, rugged country, sandy roads, a sudden high rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which tradition asserts that Bishop Berkeley once sat and considered the illusion of matter.  They stopped at length at the edge of a sandy beach.  Crystal parked her car neatly with a sharp turn of the wheel, and got out.

“There’s a tea basket,” she called over her shoulder.

Ben’s heart bounded at the news—­not that he was hungry, but as the hour was now but little past half after two a tea basket indicated a prolonged interview.  He found it tucked away in the back of the car, and followed her.  They sat down at the edge of the foam.  He lit a pipe, clasped his hands about his knees and stared out to sea; she curled her feet backward, grasped an ankle in her hand, and, looking at him, said: 

“Now what makes you groan so?”

“I haven’t meant to be dishonest,” he said, “but I have been obtaining your friendship—­trying to—­under false pretenses.”

“Trying to?” said Crystal.  “Now isn’t it silly to put that in.”

He turned and smiled at her.  She was really incredibly sweet.  “But, all the same,” he went on, “there is a barrier, a real, tangible barrier between us.”

Crystal’s heart suffered a chill convulsion at these words.  “Good gracious!” she thought.  “He’s entangled with another woman—­oh dear!—­marriage”—­But she did not interrupt him, and he continued: 

“I let you think that I was one of the men you might have known—­that I was asked to your party last night, whereas, as a matter of fact, I only watched you—­”