any supper.  That throbbing of the looms in the night!  As it grew louder and louder the tension within her increased, broke its bounds, set her heart to throbbing too—­throbbing wildly.  She halted, and went on again, precipitately, but once more slowed her steps as she came to West Street and the glare of light at the end of the bridge; at a little distance, under the chequered shadows of the bare branches, she saw something move—­a man, Ditmar.  She stood motionless as he hurried toward her.

“You’ve come!  You’ve forgiven me?” he asked.

“Why were you—­down there?” she asked.

“Why?  Because I thought—­I thought you wouldn’t want anybody to know—­”

It was quite natural that he should not wish to be seen; although she had no feeling of guilt, she herself did not wish their meeting known.  She resented the subterfuge in him, but she made no comment because his perplexity, his embarrassment were gratifying to her resentment, were restoring her self-possession, giving her a sense of power.

“We can’t stay here,” he went on, after a moment.  “Let’s take a little walk—­I’ve got a lot to say to you.  I want to put myself right.”  He tried to take her arm, but she avoided him.  They started along the canal in the direction of the Stanley Street bridge.  “Don’t you care for me a little?” he demanded.

“Why should I?” she parried.

“Then—­why did you come?”

“To hear what you had to say.”

“You mean—­about this afternoon?”

“Partly,” said Janet.

“Well—­we’ll talk it all over.  I wanted to explain about this afternoon, especially.  I’m sorry—­”

“Sorry!” she exclaimed.

The vehemence of her rebuke—­for he recognized it as such—­took him completely aback.  Thus she was wont, at the most unexpected moments, to betray the passion within her, the passion that made him sick with desire.  How was he to conquer a woman of this type, who never took refuge in the conventional tactics of her sex, as he had known them?

“I didn’t mean that,” he explained desperately.  “My God—­to feel you, to have you in my arms—!  I was sorry because I frightened you.  But when you came near me that way I just couldn’t help it.  You drove me to it.”

“Drove you to it!”

“You don’t understand, you don’t know how—­how wonderful you are.  You make me crazy.  I love you, I want you as I’ve never wanted any woman before—­in a different way.  I can’t explain it.  I’ve got so that I can’t live without you.”  He flung his arm toward the lights of the mills.  “That—­that used to be everything to me, I lived for it.  I don’t say I’ve been a saint—­but I never really cared anything about any woman until I knew you, until that day I went through the office and saw you what you were.  You don’t understand, I tell you.  I’m sorry for what I did to-day because it offended you—­but you drove me to it.  Most of the time you seem cold, you’re like an iceberg, you make me think you hate me, and then all of a sudden you’ll be kind, as you were the other night, as you seemed this afternoon—­you make me think I’ve got a chance, and then, when you came near me, when you touched my hand—­why, I didn’t know what I was doing.  I just had to have you.  A man like me can’t stand it.”