averted he read the cost of the effort.

"Please let me go." The words came faintly.

"Not until you answer me. I love you, Marcia. This time it means all
that you thought it meant before. I love you."

Her eyes came around again and intently studied his own, then the voice
spoke in low tone:

"No. You think you do--but it's only impulse."

"I love you," he insisted, "and you love me. Your pupils confess it. Why
deny it with your lips? You love me."

She gently disengaged herself and sat again on the lounge.

"Very well," she told him as she looked at him with an honesty of
expression under which his own gaze fell discomforted, "suppose I do
confess it, what then? I hadn't ever meant to confess it, but perhaps
it's better that we understand things. We mustn't drift blindly. Just
now, Paul, when you declared your love you thought you meant it. For the
fleeting time it took to say it you did mean it. If you saw her tomorrow
you would tell her the same things, and you'd believe yourself honest.
If I loved you beyond all hope of forgetting you, it would only prove
that we had both made a mistake. We mustn't go on with it."

As a wind may veer without warning, the current of Paul Burton's
emotions shifted. While wishing to deny and argue, he knew that what she
told him was true. He had entered the house with no thought of