“No, you are not—­not in love with me,” she said firmly.

Keith started, and looked down on her with a changed expression.

She raised her hand with a gesture of protest, rose and stood beside him, facing him frankly.

“You are in love, but not with me.”

Keith took her hand.  She did not take it from him; indeed, she caught his hand with a firm clasp.

“Oh, no; you are not,” she smiled.  “I have had men in love with me—­”

“You have had one, I know—­” he began.

“Yes, once, a long time ago—­and I know the difference.  I told you once that I was not what you thought me.”

“And I told you—­” began Keith; but she did not pause.

“I am still less so now.  I am not in the least what you think me—­or you are not what I think you.”

“You are just what I think you,” began Keith.  “You are the most charming woman in the world—­you are my—­” He hesitated as she looked straight into his eyes and shook her head.

“What?  No, I am not.  I am a worldly, world-worn woman.  Oh, yes, I am,” as dissent spoke in his face.  “I know the world and am a part of it and depend upon it.  Yes, I am.  I am not so far gone that I cannot recognize and admire what is better, higher, and nobler than the world of which I speak; but I am bound to the wheel—­Is not that the illustration you wrote me once?  I thought then it was absurd.  I know now how true it is.”

“I do not think you are,” declared Keith.  “If you were, I would claim the right to release you—­to save you for—­yourself and—­”

She shook her head.

“No, no.  I have become accustomed to my Sybarite’s couch of which you used to tell me.  Would you be willing to give up all you have striven for and won—­your life—­the honors you have won and hope to win?”

“They are nothing—­those I have won!  Those I hope to win, I would win for us both.  You should help me.  They would be for you, Alice.”  His eyes were deep in hers.

She fetched a long sigh.

“No, no; once, perhaps, I might have—­but now it is too late.  I chose my path and must follow it.  You would not like to give up all you—­hope for—­and become like—­some we know?”

“God forbid!”

“And I say, ‘Amen.’  And if you would, I would not be willing to have you do it.  You are too much to me—­I honor you too much,” she corrected quickly, as she caught the expression in his face.  “I could not let you sink into a—­society man—­like—­some of those I sit next to and dance with and drive with and—­enjoy and despise.  Do I not know that if you loved me you would have convinced me of it in a moment?  You have not convinced me.  You are in love,—­as you said just now,—­but not with me.  You are in love with Lois Huntington.”

Keith almost staggered.  It was so direct and so exactly what his thought had been just now.  But he said: 

“Oh, nonsense!  Lois Huntington considers me old enough to be her grandfather.  Why, she—­she is engaged to or in love with Dr. Locaman.”