Ogilvy and Annan came mincing in about nine o’clock, disposed for flippancy and gossip; but neither Neville nor Rita encouraged them; so after a while they took their unimpaired cheerfulness and horse-play elsewhere, leaving the two occupants of the studio to their own silent devices.

It was nearly midnight when he walked back with Rita to her rooms.

And now day followed day in a sequence of limpid dawns and cloudless sunsets.  Summer began with a clear, hot week in June, followed by three days’ steady downpour which freshened and cooled the city and unfolded, in square and park, everything green into magnificent maturity.

Every day Neville and Rita worked together in the studio; and every evening they walked together in the park or sat in the cool, dusky studio, companionably conversational or permitting silence to act as their interpreter.

Then John Burleson came back from Dartford after remaining there ten days under Dr. Ogilvy’s observation; and Rita arrived at the studio next day almost smiling.

“We’re’ going to Arizona,” she said. “What do you think of that, Kelly?”

“You poor child!” exclaimed Neville, taking her hands into his and holding them closely.

“Why, Kelly,” she said gently, “I knew he had to go.  This has not taken me unawares.”

“I hoped there might be some doubt,” he said.

“There was none in my mind.  I foresaw it.  Listen to me:  twice in a woman’s life a woman becomes a prophetess.  That fatal clairvoyance is permitted to a woman twice in her life—­and the second time it is neither for herself that she foresees the future, nor for him whom she loves....”

“I wish—­I wish—­” he hesitated; and she flushed brightly.

“I know what you wish, Kelly dear.  I don’t think it will ever happen.  But it is so much for me to be permitted to remain near him—­so much!—­Ah, you don’t know, Kelly!  You don’t know!”

“Would you marry him?”

Her honest blue eyes met his: 

“If he asked me; and if he still wished it—­after he knew.”

“Could you ever be less to him—­and perhaps more, Rita?”

“Do you mean—­”

He nodded deliberately.

She hung her head.

“Yes,” she said, “if I could be no more I would be what I could.”

“And you tell me that, after all that you have said?”

“I did not pretend to speak for men, Kelly.  I told you that women had, and women still would overlook the chances menacing them and face the odds dauntlessly....  Because, whatever a man is—­if a woman loves him enough—­he is worth to her what she gives.”

“Rita!  Rita!  Is it you who content yourself with such sorry philosophy?”

“Yes, it is I. You asked me and I answer you.  Whatever I said—­I know only one thing now.  And you know what that is.”

“And where am I to look for sympathy and support in my own decision?  What can I think now about all that you have said to me?”