The girl rose and went quietly over to the window. Outside the murk of
the fog was raw and choking. The stertorous snore of the ferry whistles
was uneasy, ominous: the spirit of the town's myriad anxieties. She
began to speak with measured syllables and an averted face.

"No, you don't need me, Paul. I hadn't understood before, but I do now.
I am this moment's whim, that's all. I don't need you either, I don't
need anyone." A trace of resolution and hurt pride tinged the voice, but
the resolution was predominant. "I've depended on myself for years and I
can go on. When you came today I wasn't myself. I was disappointed and
miserable and my misery made its appeal to your sympathy. You were
carried away because you're emotional, and it was all my fault. I'm
supposed to be practical and I let you do it. We must forget about it
now, that's all."

"Some things--" his voice mounted to a thrill of feeling--"can't be
forgotten."

"They must be."

"I have made you angry," he said with deep contrition, "and it's the
last thing in the world I wanted to do."

Marcia smiled again, as she might have smiled on a child who promises to
be good all its life, and who will in a forgetful half-hour be again
breaking all the laws and ordinances of the nursery.

"No, I'm not angry," she said thoughtfully. "One should not be angry
with a person of your exact sort, Paul. In another man the same thing