never trust a girl that forever looks so trustworthy! S'pose I should
fall in love with her! Would you--begrudge her to me?"

"I bequeath her to you."

"Ah! you know I haven't the ghost of a chance! She's not for po' little
Hil'ry. I never did like small women, anyhow!"

"My boy! If ever you like this one she'll no more seem small than the
open sea."

"I suppose," mused Hilary, "that's what makes it all the harder to let
go. If a girl has a soul so petty that she can sit and hear you through
to the last word your heart can bleed, you can turn away from her with
some comfort of resentment, as if you still had a remnant of your own
stature."

"Precisely!" said the lover. "But when she's too large-hearted to let
you speak, and yet answers your unspoken word, once for all, with a
compassion so modest that it seems as if it were you having compassion
on her, she's harder to give up than--"

"Doggon her, Fred, I wouldn't give her up!"

"Ah, this war, Hilary! I may never see her again. There's just one man
in this world whom--"

"Oh, get out!"

"I mean what I say. To you I leave her."