She made a little movement of flinching, but the next moment she turned back to him with absolute steadfastness.  “Guy, you and I are friends, aren’t we?  We never could be anything else.”

“Oh, couldn’t we?” said Guy.

“No,” she maintained resolutely.  “Please let us remember that!  Please let us build on that!”

He looked at her whimsically.  “It’s a shaky foundation,” he said.  “But we’ll try.  That is, we’ll pretend if you like.  Who knows?  We may succeed.”

“Don’t put it like that!” she said.  “Be a man, Guy!  I know you can be.  Only yesterday——­”

“Yesterday?  What happened yesterday?” said Guy.  “I never remember the yesterdays.”

“I think you do,” she said.  “You did a big thing yesterday.  You saved Burke.”

“Oh, that!” He uttered a low laugh.  “My dear girl, don’t canonize me on that account!  I only did it because those swine wanted to see him burn.”

She shuddered.  “That is not true.  You know it is not true.  It pleases you to pretend you are callous.  But you are not at heart.  Burke knows that as well as I do,”

“Oh, damn Burke!” he said airly.  “He’s no great oracle.  I wonder what you’d have said if I had come back without him.”

She clenched her hands hard to keep back another shudder.  “I can’t talk of that—­can’t think of it even.  You don’t know—­you will never realize—­all that Burke has done for me.”

“Yes, I do know,” Guy said.  “But most men would have jumped at the chance to do the same.  You take it all too seriously.  It was no sacrifice to him.  You don’t owe him anything.  He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t taken a fancy to you.  And he didn’t do it for nothing either.  He’s not such a philanthropist as that.”

Somehow that hurt her intolerably.  She looked at him with a quick flash of anger in her eyes.  “Do you want to make me hate you?” she said.

He turned instantly and with a most winning gesture.  “No, darling.  You couldn’t if you tried,” he said.

She went back a step, shaking her head.  “I am not so sure,” she said.  “Why do you say these horrible things to me?”

He held out his hand to her.  “I’m awfully sorry, dear,” he said.  “But it is for your good.  I want you to see life as it is, not as your dear little imagination is pleased to paint it.  You are so dreadfully serious always.  Life isn’t, you know.  It really isn’t.  It’s nothing but a stupid and rather vulgar farce.”

She gave him her hand, for she could not deny him; but she gave no sign of yielding with it.  “Oh, how I wish you would take it more seriously!” she said.

“Do you?” he said.  “But what’s the good?  Who Is it going to benefit if I do?  Not myself.  I should hate it.  And not you.  You are much too virtuous to have any use for me.”

“Oh, Guy,” she said, “Is it never worth while to play the game?”