An instant before he had told himself with emphasis that he would go no further, but the chill remoteness from which she looked at him stirred him to an emotion that was not unlike a jealous anger.  She seemed to him then more brightly distant, more sweetly inaccessible than she had done at their first meeting.

“Not even when it is a salvation through love?” he asked impulsively, and at the thought that she was possibly less indifferent than she appeared to be, he felt his desire of her mount swiftly to his head.

Her hand went to her bosom to keep down the wild beating of her heart, but the face with which she regarded him was like the face of a statue.  “No—­because I doubt the possibility of such a thing,” she said.

“The possibility of my loving you or of your saving me?”

“The possibility of both.”

“How little you know of me,” he exclaimed, and his voice sounded hurt as if he were wounded by her disbelief.

She raised her eyes and looked at him, and for several seconds they sat in silence with only the little space between them.

“It is very well,” she said presently, “that I believe nothing that you say to me—­or it might be hard to divide the truth from the untruth.”

“I never told you an untruth in my life,” he protested angrily.

“Doesn’t a man always tell them to a woman?” she enquired.

For an instant he hesitated; then he spoke daringly, spurred on by her indifferent aspect.  “He doesn’t when—­he loves her.”

“When he loves her more than ever,” she returned quietly, as if his remark held for her merely an historic interest, “Perry Bridewell loves Gerty, I suppose, and yet he lies to her every day he lives.”

“That’s because she likes it,” he commented, with a return of raillery.

“She doesn’t like it—­no woman does.  As for me I want the truth even if it kills me.”

“It wouldn’t kill you,” he answered, and the tenderness in his voice made her feel suddenly that she had never known what love could be, “it would give you life.”  Then his tone changed quickly and the old pleasant humour leaped to his eyes, “and whatever comes I promise never to lie to you,” he added.

She shook her head.  “I didn’t ask it,” she rejoined, with a sharp breath.

“If you had,” he laughed, “I wouldn’t have promised.  That’s a part of the general contrariness of men—­they like to give what they are not asked for.”

“Well, I’ll never ask anything of you,” she said, smiling.

“Is that because you want to get everything?” he enquired gayly.

A pale flush rose to her forehead, and the glow heightened the singular illumination which dwelt in her face.  “Would the best that you could give be more than a little?”

“It would be more than a woman ever got on earth.”

“Well, I’m not sure that I would accept your valuation,” she remarked, with an effort to keep up the light tone of banter.