With a start she sat erect in her chair.  “And you can stop to think of her?” she demanded.

The hand lying on the arm of his chair closed and unclosed itself slowly, without effort.  “Can’t you?” he asked abruptly.

“Not sincerely, not naturally,” she answered.  “I think of you.”

She saw a spasm of pain pass suddenly into his face, a too ardent leaping, as it were, of the blood.

“You would understand things better,” he said presently, after a pause in which she felt that she had witnessed a quick, sharp struggle, “if you had ever watched the slow moral poisoning of cocaine—­or had ever been,” he added with a harsh, grating sound in his usually quiet voice, “at the mercy of such a damned brute as Brady.”

His sudden rage shook her like a strong wind, and she liked him the better for his relapse into an elemental passion in the cause of righteousness.

“I’m glad you cursed him,” she remarked simply.  “I like it!”

He smiled a little grimly.  “So do I.”

“And yet how terrible it is,” she said, with an effort to work herself into a sentiment of pity for Connie which she did not feel.  “It makes the whole world look full of horror.”

“Well, it’s a comfort to think I never argued that it wasn’t a hard road,” he returned, with the whimsical humour which seemed only to deepen her sense of tragedy.  “I’ve merely maintained that the only excuse for living is to make it a little easier.”

He rose as he spoke and held out his hand with a smile.  “So long as you’re happy, don’t bother to think of me,” he said; “but if there ever comes a time when you need a sword-arm, let me know.”

Would she ever find that she had need of him? he asked himself presently as he walked rapidly homeward through the streets.  Was it in the remotest probability of events that he should ever know the delight of putting forth his full strength in her service?  Like a beautiful dream the thought stayed by him for many minutes, and his mind dwelt upon it as upon some rare, cherished vision that lies always behind the actual energies of life.  He thought of her dark, eloquent eyes, of the imaginative spirit in her look, and of that peculiar blending of strength with sweetness which he had found in no woman except herself.  It was a part of the power she exercised that in thinking of her the physical images appeared always to express a quality that was not in themselves alone.

Then, because he must let her go forever, he set himself patiently to detach her presence from his memory.  To think of her had become, he knew, the luxury of weakness, and in order to test his strength for renouncement, he brought his mind deliberately to bear upon the immediate necessity before him.  It was useless to say to himself that he could as soon give up his dream as his desire.  The endurance of his will, he realised, was equal to whatever sacrifice he was called upon to make and live.