In her youth and self-sufficiency Lily stood ready to give, rather than to receive.  She felt now that he needed her more than she needed him.  There was something unconsciously patronizing those days in her attitude toward him, and if he recognized it he did not resent it.  Women had always been “easy” for him.  Her very aloofness, her faint condescension, her air of a young grande dame, were a part of her attraction for him.

Love sees clearly, and seeing, loves on.  But infatuation is blind; when it gains sight, it dies.  Already Lily was seeing him with the critical eyes of youth, his loud voice, his over-fastidious dress, his occasional grossnesses.  To offset these she placed vast importance on his promise to leave his old associates when she married him.

The time was very close now.  She could not hold him off much longer, and she began to feel, too, that she must soon leave the house on Cardew Way.  Doyle’s attitude to her was increasingly suspicious and ungracious.  She knew that he had no knowledge of Louis’s promise, but he began to feel that she was working against him, and showed it.

And in Louis Akers too she began to discern an inclination not to pull out until after the election.  He was ambitious, and again and again he urged that he would be more useful for the purpose in her mind if he were elected first.

That issue came to a climax the day she had seen her mother and learned the terms on which she might return home.  She was alarmed by his noisy anger at the situation.

“Do sit down, Louis, and be quiet,” she said.  “You have known their attitude all along, haven’t you?”

“I’ll show them,” he said, thickly.  “Damned snobs!” He glanced at her then uneasily, and her expression put him on his guard.  “I didn’t mean that, little girl.  Honestly I didn’t.  I don’t care for myself.  It’s you.”

“You must understand that they think they are acting for my good.  And I am not sure,” she added, her clear eyes on him, “that they are not right.  You frighten me sometimes, Louis.”

But a little later he broke out again.  If he wasn’t good enough to enter their house, he’d show them something.  The election would show them something.  They couldn’t refuse to receive the mayor of the city.  She saw then that he was bent on remaining with Doyle until after the election.

Lily sat back, listening and thinking.  Sometimes she thought that he did not love her at all.  He always said he wanted her, but that was different.

“I think you love yourself more than you love me, Louis,” she said, when he had exhausted himself.  “I don’t believe you know what love is.”

That brought him to his knees, his arms around her, kissing her hands, begging her not to give him up, and once again her curious sense of responsibility for him triumphed.

“You will marry me soon, dear, won’t you?” he implored her.  But she thought of Willy Cameron, oddly enough, even while his arms were around her; of the difference in the two men.  Louis, big, crouching, suppliant and insistent; Willy Cameron, grave, reserved and steady, taking what she now knew was the blow of her engagement like a gentleman and a soldier.