Under his scrutiny she lost her air of reticence. She pressed her hand to her throat. She had woefully failed, then, in her first effort to conceal her love for Renny. Eden had watched this smouldering passion with an appraising eye from the beginning!
She asked brokenly: "Did that make a difference to you? Knowing so long ago that I loved Renny? I thought you had only guessed it, later—believed that I had turned to him when I found you didn't care any more"
He answered mercilessly: "Yes, it did make a difference. I felt an outsider."
"Then," she gasped, "I am to blame for everything! For Pheasant"
"No, no. It would have come, sooner or later. It's not in me to be faithful to any woman."
She persisted doggedly: "I am to blame for everything."
He came into the room and touched her with an almost childlike gesture.
"Alayne, don't look like that. You're so—it's stupid of you. You can't help what you are. Any more than I can help what I am. My dear, I suspect that we are much more alike than you would let yourself believe. The great difference between us is that you analyze yourself while I analyze others. It's better fun. . . . Alayne, look up"
She looked at him sombrely.
"The whole trouble has been," he said, "that you were a thousand times too good for me!"
She turned away from him and returned blindly to the arranging of her trunk.
He said: "I told old Renny one day that you'd go through hell for a sight of his red head."
"Oh! and what did he say?" Her voice was without expression. Eden should not bait her again.
"I forget. But of course he liked it."
She turned and faced him. "Eden, will you please leave me to pack in peace? You know that I have promised to spend the evening with your aunt and
