Myra rose.  “I’ll come again and straighten up in a day or two.”

She turned back at the foot of the steps.

“Robin,” she said, with a wistful, uncertain smile, “if Doris does will you let me help you pick up the pieces?”

Hollister stared at her a second.

“God God!” he broke out.  “Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“Perfectly.”

“You’re a strange woman.”

“Yes, I suppose I am,” she returned.  “But my strangeness is only an acceptance, as a natural fact, of instincts and cravings and desires that women are taught to repress.  If I find that I’ve gone swinging around an emotional circle and come back to the point, or the man, where I started, why should I shrink from that, or from admitting it—­or from acting on it if it seemed good to me?”

She came back to where Hollister sat on the steps.  She put her hand on his knee, looked searchingly into his face.  Her pansy-blue eyes met his steadily.  The expression in them stirred Hollister.

“Mind you, Robin, I don’t think your Doris is superficial enough to be repelled by a facial disfigurement.  She seems instinctively to know and feel and understand so many things that I’ve only learned by bitter experience.  She would never have made the mistakes I’ve made.  I don’t think your face will make you any the less her man.  But if it does—­I was your first woman.  I did love you, Robin.  I could again.  I could creep back into your arms if they were empty, and be glad.  Would it seem strange?”

And still Hollister stared dumbly.  He heard her with a little rancor, a strange sense of the futility of what she said.  Why hadn’t she acquired this knowledge of herself long ago?  It was too late now.  The old fires were dead.  But if the new one he had kindled to warm himself were to be extinguished, could he go back and bask in the warmth that smoldered in this woman’s eyes?  He wondered.  And he felt a faint irritation, as if some one had accused him of being faithless.

“Do you think it’s strange that I should feel and speak like this?” Myra persisted.  “Do people never profit by their mistakes?  Am I so unlovable a creature?  Couldn’t you either forget or forgive?”

He shook his head.

“It isn’t that.”  His voice sounded husky, uncertain.  “We can’t undo what’s done, that’s all.  I cross no more bridges before I come to them.”

“Don’t mistake me, Robin,” she said with a self-conscious little laugh.  “I’m no lovesick flapper.  Neither am I simply a voluptuous creature seeking a new sensation.  I don’t feel as if I couldn’t live without you.  But I do feel as if I could come back to you again and it would be a little like coming home after a long, disappointing journey.  When I see you suffering, I want to comfort you.  If she makes you suffer, I shall be unhappy unless I can make you feel that life still holds something good.  If I could do that, I should perhaps find life good myself.