“No.”

“Because, if I had, I should never have had the strength to go away.”  She lifted her eyes to his.  Her voice fell to a half whisper.  “You understood, on the island?...  What I meant?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t take me.  I wonder.  Ban, if it hadn’t been for the light flashing in our eyes and giving us hope...?”

“How can I tell?  I was dazed with the amazement and the glory of it—­of you.  But—­yes.  My God, yes!  And then?  Afterward?”

“Could there have been any afterward?” she questioned dreamily.  “Would we not just have waited for the river to sweep us up and carry us away?  What other ending could there have been, so fitting?”

“Anyway,” he said with a sudden savage jealousy, “whatever happened you would not have gone away to marry Eyre.”

“Should I not?  I’m by no means sure.  You don’t understand much of me, my poor Ban.”

“How could you!” he burst out.  “Would that have been—­”

“Oh, I should have told him, of course.  I’d have said, ’Del, there’s been another man, a lover.’  One could say those things to him.”

“Would he have married you?”

“You wouldn’t, would you?” she smiled.  “All or nothing, Ban, for you.  About Del, I don’t know.”  She shrugged dainty shoulders.  “I shouldn’t have much cared.”

“And would you have come back to me, Io?”

“Do you want me to say ‘Yes’?  You do want me to say’ Yes,’ don’t you, my dear?  How can I tell?...  Sooner or later, I suppose.  Fate.  The irresistible current.  I am here now.”

“Io.”  He leaned to her across the little table, his somber regard holding hers.  “Why did you tell Camilla Van Arsdale that you would never divorce Eyre?”

“Because it’s true.”

“But why tell her?  So that it should come back to me?”

She answered him straight and fearlessly.  “Yes.  I thought it would be easier for you to hear from her.”

“Did you?” He sat staring past her at visions.  It was not within Banneker’s code, his sense of fair play in the game, to betray to Io his wonderment (shared by most of her own set) that she should have endured the affront of Del Eyre’s openly flagitious life, even though she had herself implied some knowledge of it in her assumption that a divorce could be procured.  However, Io met his reticence with characteristic candor.

“Of course I know about Del.  We have a perfect understanding.  He’s agreed to maintain the outward decencies, from now on.  I don’t consider that I’ve the right to ask more.  You see, I shouldn’t have married him ... even though he understood that I wasn’t really in love with him.  We’re friends; and we’re going to remain friends.  Just that.  Del’s a good sort,” she added with a hint of pleading the cause of a misunderstood person.  “He’d give me my divorce in a minute; even though he still cares—­in his way.  But there’s his mother.  She’s a sort of latter-day saint; one of those rare people that you respect and love in equal parts; the only other one I know is Cousin Willis Enderby.  She’s an invalid, hopeless, and a Roman Catholic, and for me to divorce Del would poison the rest of her life.  So I won’t.  I can’t.”