In a few moments she went on, gathering up a little handful of the
shining shingle, and slowly sifting it through her fingers as though in
search of something precious.

"I think if she had really loved the man, it wouldn't have mattered.
Nothing counts like love, does it? But--you see--she didn't. She wanted
to. She knew that he was clean and honourable, worthy of a good woman.
He loved her, too, loved her so that he was willing to put away all her
past. For she did not deceive him about that. He was willing to give her
all--all she wanted. But she did not love him. She honoured him, and she
felt for a time at least that love might come. He guessed that, and he
did his best--all that he could think of--to get her to consent. In the
end--in the end"--Rosemary paused, a tiny stone in her hand that shone
like polished crystal--"she was very near to the verge of yielding, the
young man had almost won, when--when something happened that
altered--everything. The young man had a friend, a writer, a great man
even then; he is greater now. The friend came, and he threw his whole
weight into the scale against her. She felt him--the force of
him--before she so much as saw him. She had broken with her lover some
time before. She was free. And she determined to marry the young man who
loved her--in spite of his friend. That very day it happened. The young
man sent her a book written by his friend. She had begun to hate the
writer, but out of curiosity she opened it and read. First a bit here,
then a bit there, and at last she sat down and read it--all through."

The little shining crystal lay alone in the soft pink palm. Rosemary
dwelt upon it, faintly smiling.

"She read far into the night," she said, speaking almost dreamily, as if