But, crying out, she interrupted him. "Ah! Will you please go back to your club before you tell me to see a nerve specialist?"
"All right; if you want to be let alone, I'll go." And with that, he rose and went decisively toward the door; but paused before he reached it. "You knew that when one girl asks a man not to let himself be carried away by another girl he's likely to think her merely jealous, didn't you?"
"Oh, glory!" Claire groaned. "I told you I took that risk knowingly."
"It's a long time—a long, long time"—he said, and his voice had become a little tremulous;—"It's a long, long time since you cared to have me in love with you. But you take enough interest in me now for myself to risk anything I might think of you."
"What?" she said in a low voice; then she lifted her head from between her two hands where it had been drooping; and with wet, wide eyes, she stared at him. "What?" she repeated more loudly; and a third time she said the word, louder still. "What?"
He came and stood before her. "You care enough for me on my own account to take that risk. How much more do you expect to care for anybody?"
Startled, disturbed to the depths of her being,
