“Jenny, old girl....  That’s not true.  But I thought you’d understand better than you’ve done.  I thought you’d understand why I told you.  You think I thought I was so sure of you....  I wish you’d try to see a bit further.”  He leaned back again, not touching her, but dejectedly frowning; his face pale beneath the tan.  His anger had passed in a deeper feeling.  “I told you because you wanted to know about me.  If I’d been the sort of chap you’re thinking I should have told a long George Washington yarn, pretending to be an innocent hero.  Well, I didn’t.  I’m not an innocent hero.  I’m a man who’s knocked about for fifteen years.  You’ve got the truth.  Women don’t like the truth.  They want a yarn.  A yappy, long, sugar-coated yarn, and lots of protestations.  This is all because I haven’t asked you to forgive me—­because I haven’t sworn not to do it again if only you’ll forgive me.  You want to see yourself forgiving me.  On a pinnacle....  Graciously forgiving me—­”

“Oh, you’re a beast!” cried Jenny.  “Let me go home.”  She rose to her feet, and stood in deep thought.  For a moment Keith remained seated:  then he too rose.  They did not look at one another, but with bent heads continued to reconsider all that had been said.

v

“I’ve all the time been trying to show you I’m not a beast,” Keith urged at last.  “But a human being.  It takes a woman to be something above a human being.”  He was sneering, and the sneer chilled her.

“If you’d been thinking of somebody for months,” she began in a trembling tone.  “Thinking about them all the time, living on it day after day ... just thinking about them and loving them with all your heart....  You don’t know the way a woman does it.  There’s nothing else for them to think about.  I’ve been thinking every minute of the day—­about how you looked, and what you said; and telling myself—­though I didn’t believe it—­that you were thinking about me just the same.  And I’ve been planning how you’d look when I saw you again, and what we’d say and do....  You don’t know what it’s meant to me.  You’ve never dreamed of it.  And now to come to-night—­when I ought to be at home looking after my dad.  And to hear you talk about ... about a lot of other girls as if I was to take them for granted.  Why, how do I know there haven’t been lots of others since you saw me?”

“Because I tell you it’s not so,” he interposed.  “Because I’ve been thinking of you all the time.”

“How many days at the seaside was it?  Three?”

“It was enough for me.  It was enough for you.”

“And now one evening’s enough for both of us,” Jenny cried sharply.  “Too much!”

“You’ll cry your eyes out to-morrow,” he warned.

“Oh, to-night!” she assured him recklessly.

“Because you don’t love me.  You throw all the blame on me; but it’s your own pride that’s the real trouble, Jenny.  You want to come round gradually; and time’s too short for it.  Remember, I’m away again to-morrow.  Did you forget that?”