That reached her again; all the time the plain words, the plain face, the quiet of him stabbed her with daggers of which he had no idea.  She was dismayed at the recollection of her talk with her brother the evening before, of the ease and certitude with which she had laid down her conditions, of not giving up her career, of remaining the famous Miss Falbe, of refusing to take a dishonoured place in the sacred circle of the Combers.  Now, when she was face to face with his love, so ineloquently expressed, so radically a part of him, she knew that there was nothing in the world, external to him and her, that could enter into their reckonings; but into their reckonings there had not entered the one thing essential.  She gave him sympathy, liking, friendliness, but she did not want him with her blood.  And though it was not humanly possible that she could want him with more than that, it was not possible that she could take him with less.

“Yes, that is the most I can do for you at present,” she said.

Still quite quietly he moved away from her, so that he stood free of her hands.

“I have been constantly here all these last months,” he said.  “Now that you know what I have told you, do you want not to see me?”

That stabbed her again.

“Have I implied that?” she asked.

“Not directly.  But I can easily understand its being a bore to you.  I don’t want to bore you.  That would be a very stupid way of trying to make you care for me.  As I said, that is my job.  I haven’t accomplished it as yet.  But I mean to.  I only ask you for a hint.”

She understood her own feeling better than he.  She understood at least that she was dealing with things that were necessarily incalculable.

“I can’t give you a hint,” she said.  “I can’t make any plans about it.  If you were a woman perhaps you would understand.  Love is, or it isn’t.  That is all I know about it.”

But Michael persisted.

“I only know what you have taught me,” he said.  “But you must know that.”

In a flash she became aware that it would be impossible for her to behave to Michael as she had behaved to him for several months past.  She could not any longer put a hand on his shoulder, beat time with her fingers on his arm, knowing that the physical contact meant nothing to her, and all—­all to him.  The rejection of him as a lover rendered the sisterly attitude impossible.  And not only must she revise her conduct, but she must revise the mental attitude of which it was the physical counterpart.  Up till this moment she had looked at the situation from her own side only, had felt that no plans could be made, that the natural thing was to go on as before, with the intimacy that she liked and the familiarity that was the obvious expression of it.  But now she began to see the question from his side; she could not go on doing that which meant nothing particular to her, if that insouciance meant something so very