And so, essentially solitary, inevitably lonely, out of her own young heart and an untrained mind she was evolving a code of responsibility to herself and to the world.

Her ethics and her morals were becoming what wide, desultory, and unrestrained reading was making them; her passion for happiness and for truth, her restless intelligence, were prematurely forming her character.  There was no one in authority to tell her—­check, guide, or direct her in the revolt from dogmatism, pedantry, sophistry and conventionalism.  And by this path youthful intelligence inevitably passes, incredulous of snare and pitfall where lie the bones of many a savant under magic blossoms nourished by creeds long dead.

“To bring no sorrow to any one, Louis—­that is the way I am trying to live,” she said, seriously.

“You are bringing it to me.”

“If that is so—­then I had better depart as I came and leave you in peace.”

“It’s too late.”

“Perhaps it is not.  Shall we try it?”

“Could you recover?”

“I don’t know.  I am willing to try for your sake.”

“Do you want to?” he asked, almost angrily.

“I am not thinking of myself, Louis.”

“I want you to.  I don’t want you not to think about yourself all the time.”

She made a hopeless gesture, opening her arms and turning her palms outward: 

“Kelly Neville! What do you suppose loving you means to me?”

“Don’t you think of yourself at all when you love me?”

“Why—­I suppose I do—­in a way.  I know I’m fortunate, happy—­I—­” She glanced up shyly—­“I am glad that I am—­loved—­”

“You darling!”

She let him take her into his arms, suffered his caress, looking at him in silence out of eyes as dark and clear and beautiful as brown pools in a forest.

“You’re just a bad, spoiled, perverse little kid, aren’t you?” he said, rumpling her hair.

“You say so.”

“Breaking my heart because you won’t marry me.”

“No, breaking my own because you don’t really love me enough, yet.”

“I love you too much—­”

“That is literary bosh, Louis.”

“Good God!  Can’t you ever understand that I’m respectable enough to want you for my wife?”

“You mean that you want me for what I do not wish to be.  And you decline to love me unless I turn into a selfish, dependent, conventional nonentity, which you adore because respectable.  Is that what you mean?”

“I want the laws of civilisation to safeguard you,” he persisted patiently.

“I need no more protection than you need.  I am not a baby.  I am not afraid.  Are you?”

“That is not the question—­”

“Yes it is, dear.  I stand in no fear.  Why do you wish to force me to do what I believe would be a wrong to you?  Can’t you respect my disreputable convictions?”