“Why,” he told her, “I am different.  Permanently different toward you.  I am convinced of it.  I don’t pretend to understand it myself, but somehow—­I’m relieved.  For one thing, I never wanted to fall in love with you.  It was quite against my will that I did it.  And then I’ve always been tortured with curiosity about you.  I’ve wondered.  Were you as unconscious of me as you seemed?  Was it possible that you didn’t know.  And if you did know, was it possible that you were—­waiting?  That it only needed a word of mine to put everything between us on a different basis?  I couldn’t get rid of that idea.  It kept nagging at me.  But after what you told me last night—­and you certainly told it straight—­that idea’s exploded.  What you said explains everything about you.  I know now that I haven’t a chance in the world.  From now on, I imagine, I’ll be able to treat you like a human being.  Well, are you willing to try it?”

Up to now they’d been sitting quietly in their two chairs with most of the width of the room between them.  But at this last question of his she got up and walked over to the window.

“I don’t know,” she said at last.  “It seems dangerous, somehow; like courting trouble.  I know ...”  She hesitated, but then decided to say what was in her mind.  “I know how terribly strong those feelings are and I’ve found out how little they’ve got to do with what it’s so easy to decide is reasonable.”  Now she turned and faced him.

“Don’t you think it would be more sensible for me to find another job?  So that we could—­well, take a fresh start?”

“Child,” he said, “don’t you know there’s no such thing in the world as a fresh start?  Or a new leaf?  That’s a comfortable delusion for cowards.  The situation’s in a mess, is it?  All right, run away.  Begin again with a clean slate.  But the first thing written down on that slate is that you’ve just run away.  Besides, suppose you do get another job, working, say, for another director.  How do you know that he won’t fall in love with you?”

That last sentence went by unheard.  She was staring at him, almost in consternation.  “That’s true,” she said.  “That’s perfectly true.  That about running away.  I—­I never thought of it before.”  She went back to her chair and dropped into it rather limply.  She sat there through a long silence, still thinking over his words and apparently almost frightened over her own implications from them.

At last he said, “You’ve no cause for worry over that, I should think.  I don’t believe you’ve ever run away from anything yet.”

“I don’t know,” she answered thoughtfully.  “I don’t know whether I did or not.”

“Well,” he came out at last, getting to his feet, “how about it?  What shall we do this time?  Shall we tackle the situation and try to make the best of it, or ...”

“Yes, that’s what we’ll do,” she said.  “And, well, I’m much obliged to you for putting me right.”