“Please, Dan!” she pleaded, drawing her hand away.  “I mean to go on with my life as I have begun it.  I shall never marry, Dan,—­marriage isn’t in my plan at all.  But for you the right woman will come some day—­I hope so with all my heart.  We must understand all this now.  And I must be sure, oh, very sure, that you know how dear it is to have had you say these things to me.”

“But I shall say them again and always, Sylvia!  This was only the beginning; I had to speak to-night; I came here to say these things to you.  I am able to care for you now—­not as I should like to, but I’m going to succeed.  I want to ease the way for you; I mean that you mustn’t go back to teaching this fall!”

“There, you see”—­and he knew she smiled in her patient, sweet way that was dear to him—­“you want to stop my work before it’s begun!  You see how impossible it would be, Dan!”

“But you can do other things; there are infinite ways in which you can be of use, doing the things you want to do.  The school work is only a handicap,—­drudgery that leads to nothing.”

He knew instantly that he had erred; and that he must give her no opportunity to defend her attitude toward her work.  He returned quickly to his great longing and need.

“Without you I’m a failure, Sylvia.  If it hadn’t been for you I should never have freed myself of that man over there!” And he lifted his arm toward the lights of the Bassett landing on the nearer shore.

“No; you would have saved yourself in any case; there’s no questioning that.  You were bound to do it.  And it wasn’t the man; it was the base servitude that you came to despise.”

“Not without you!  It was your attitude toward me, after that cheap piece of melodrama I figured in in that convention, that brought me up with a short turn.  It all came through you—­my wish to measure up to your ideal.”

“That’s absurd, Dan.  If I believed that I should think much less of you; I really should!” she exclaimed.  “It was something finer and higher than that; it was your own manhood asserting itself.  That man over there,” she went on more quietly, “is an object of pity.  He’s beset on many sides.  It hurt him to lose you.  He’s far from happy.”

“He has no claim upon happiness; he doesn’t deserve happiness,” replied Dan doggedly.

“But the break must have cost you something; haven’t you missed him just a little bit?”

It was clear from her tone that she wished affirmation of this.  The reference to his former employer angered him.  He had been rejoicing in his escape from Morton Bassett, and yet Sylvia spoke of him with tolerance and sympathy.  The Bassetts were coolly using her to extricate themselves from the embarrassments resulting from their own folly; it was preposterous that they should have sent Sylvia to bring Marian home.  And his rage was intensified by the recollection of the pathos he had himself felt in Bassett that very evening, as he had watched him mount the steps of his home.  Sylvia was causing the old chords to vibrate with full knowledge that, in spite of his avowed contempt for the man, Morton Bassett still roused his curiosity and interest.  It was unfair for Sylvia to take advantage of this.