[58]

He went to sit beside her on the green sofa and was straightway conscious that he had stepped within a strange aura. Pointedly and of set purpose he began to talk of commonplace things; Middleboro things that had happened during his absence. But the subtle distraction persisted, coming like a veil between the thought and the words until he scarcely knew at times what he was saying. It was a new experience. What he had told Oswald was the simple truth; in the old days he and Judith Fallon had been more like two boys together than a boy and girl, and the frank comradeship had carried over from childhood to manhood and womanhood; or it had up to now. But now he could see and feel nothing but her superb physical beauty. Once, as a college Freshman, he had permitted himself to be ridiculed into gulping down a drink of whiskey. “It was like this,” he found himself saying aloud, and the girl beside him laughed.

“What’s come over you, Davie?” she said. “Half the time you’re talking nonsense—just nonsense. But for knowing how you hate it, I might think you’d been drinking!”

[59]“I have,” he returned soberly, suddenly realizing. Then: “Glo, you ought to pick out some decent young fellow and get married.”

[59]

She laughed at this, but the black eyes were hard.

“Why would I want to be getting married?” she demanded.

“Don’t you?”

“I thought I did—two years ago.”

“You were too young then,” he decided gravely. “But now it is time. You—you’re a living threat, as you are. Don’t you know it?”

“And what would I be threatening, then?”

“The peace of mind of every man who comes near you. You may not know it, Glo, but you are the kind of woman for whom men, ever since the world began, have been throwing everything worth while into the discard; truth, honor, loyalty—anything they had to fling away.”

“Would you just be finding that out, Davie?”

“You—you’re different in 

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