His eyes met hers, green and dominant.  She saw again that old mocking gleam of conscious mastery with which he had been wont to exasperate her.  He answered her with a directness almost brutal.

“Because you don’t love him.”

“I do love him!” she declared fiercely.  “I do love him!”

“Better than me?” said Max.

She shrank visibly from the question.  “I love him too well to throw him over,” she said.

His lips twisted cynically.  “That is curious,” he said.

She winced again from that which he left unsaid.  “Oh, Max, don’t hurt me!” she pleaded.  “Try—­try to understand!”

It was an appeal for mercy.  But Max would not hear.  He took her by the shoulders, compelling her to face him.  “So you really mean to marry Noel,” he said.  “Do you think you will be happy with him?”

“I could never be happy if I didn’t,” she answered rather incoherently.

Max frowned.  “Look here!” he said.  “It’s no good expecting me to understand if you won’t even answer my questions.”

She quivered in his hold.  “You ask such—­impossible things,” she said.

“They are only impossible,” Max said relentlessly, “because you are afraid to tell me the truth.  You are afraid to tell me that you are sacrificing yourself.  You are afraid to be honest—­even with yourself.”

“I am not!” she protested fierily.  “Max, you have no right——­”

“I have a right.”  He broke in upon her sternly.  “I have the first and foremost right.  Remember, you were mine before you were his.  You gave yourself to me because you loved me.  You only threw me over because of a fancied unworthiness.  Now I am cleared of that, do you think you owe me nothing more than an apology?”

“Oh, but, Max,” she pleaded, “think of Noel!  Think of Noel!”

“Well?” said Max, “then think of him!  Don’t you think he can make a better bargain for himself than marriage with a woman who doesn’t love him best?  Why, nearly every woman he meets falls in love with him, and could offer him more than you do.  You women who are so keen on sacrificing yourselves never look at the man’s point of view, and so the only thing he really wants, you make it impossible for him to get.”

“Max!  Max!” she cried in distress.

“Well, isn’t it so?” said Max.  “Just admit that, and p’raps I won’t bully you any more.  You know he doesn’t come first with you—­and never would.”

“But I could make him happy,” she said.

“Oh, could you?  And suppose his happiness depended upon yours?  Suppose he were man enough to want you to be happy too?  Could you do that for him?”

She hesitated.

He pressed on without mercy.  “Could you drive me utterly out of your thoughts, your dreams?  Could you stifle every regret, every secret longing?  Could you empty your heart of me and put him in my place?  Tell me!  Could you?”

But she could not tell him.  She only turned her face from him and wept.