front of a picture."

"I can't go alone."

"Can't you?" he asked, looking closely at her in the dusk, so close that
she could see every mocking feature.

"Yes," she said in a low, surprised voice, "I could go
alone--anywhere--with you.... I didn't realise it before, Duane."

"You never tried. You once mistook an impulse of genuine passion for the
sort of thing I've done since. You made a terrific fuss about being
kissed when I saw, as soon as I saw you, that I wanted to win you, if
you'd let me. Since then you've chosen the key-note of our relations,
not I, and you don't like my interpretation of my part."

For a while she sat silent, preoccupied with this totally new revelation
of a man about whom she supposed she had long ago made up her mind.

"I'm glad we've had this talk," she said at last.

"I am, too. I haven't asked you to fall in love with me; I haven't asked
for your confidence. I've asked you to take an intelligent, affectionate
interest in what I might become, and perhaps you and I won't be so
lonely if you do."

He struck a match in the darkness and lighted a cigarette. Close inshore
Scott Seagrave's electric torch flashed. They heard the velvety scraping
of the canoe, the rattle and thump as he flung it, bottom upward, on the
sandy point.