“You let Jim have some money this morning?” she said then; it was a statement as much as an interrogation.

“Yes,” Hollister replied.

“Don’t let him have any more,” she said bluntly.  “You may never get it back.  Why should you supply him with money that you’ve worked for when he won’t make any effort to get it for himself?  You’re altogether too free-handed, Robin.”

Hollister stood speechless.  She looked at him with a curious half-amused expectancy.  She knew him.  No one but Myra had ever called him that.  It had been her pet name for him in the old days.  She knew him.  He leaned on his pike pole, waiting for what was to follow.  This revelation was only a preliminary.  Something like a dumb fury came over Hollister.  Why did she reveal this knowledge of him?  For what purpose?  He felt his secure foundations crumbling.

“So you recognize me?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” she said slowly.  “Did you think your only distinguishing characteristic was the shape of your face?  I’ve been sure of it for months.”

“Ah,” he said.  “What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.  Nothing.  What is there to do?”

“Then why reveal this knowledge?” he demanded harshly.  “Why drag out the old skeleton and rattle it for no purpose?  Or have you some purpose?”

Myra sat down on a fallen tree.  She drew the folds of a heavy brown coat closer about her and looked at him steadily.

“No,” she replied.  “I can’t say that I have any definite purpose except—­that I want to talk to you.  And it seemed that I could talk to you better if we stopped pretending.  We can’t alter facts by pretending they don’t exist, can we?”

“I don’t attempt to alter them,” he said.  “I accept them and let it go at that.  Why don’t you?”

“I do,” she assured him, “but when I find myself compelled to accept your money to pay for the ordinary necessaries of living, I feel myself being put in an intolerable position.  I suppose you won’t understand that.  I imagine you think of me as a selfish little beast who has no scruples about anything.  But I’m not quite like that.  It galls me to have Jim borrow from you.  He may intend to pay it back.  But he won’t; it will somehow never be quite convenient.  And I’ve squandered enough of your money.  I feel like a thief sometimes when I watch you work.  You must hate me.  Do you, Robin?”

Hollister stirred the snow absently with the pike-pole point.  He tried to analyze his feelings, and he found it difficult.

“I don’t think so,” he said at last.  “I’m rather indifferent.  If you meddled with things I’d not only hate you, I think I would want to destroy you.  But you needn’t worry about the money.  If Bland doesn’t repay the hundred dollars it won’t break me.  I won’t lend him any more if it disturbs you.  But that doesn’t matter.  The only thing that matters is whether you are going to upset everything in some rash mood that you may sometime have.”