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 FLAMING

YOUTH

85

“Unchanged !”? he breathed. Something imperative in Constance’s burgeoning interest in the man drove her to ask: “Did you—were you very much in love with her?” There was daring in her tone; but there was compassion also. Because of his sense of the latter he answered her frankly: “No. Not, perhaps, as most people understand it. Love asks much. I asked—nothing. It was not,” he smiled faintly, “as one falls in love and falls out.”

“Ah?” she returned, questioningly, tauntingly. held to the graver tone.

But he

“She was all that dreams could be, and as unattainable

as dreams. If she was like an angel to me, I suppose I was like a boy to her. She used to tell me about you and your sisters.” Again he smiled. ‘Once she said, ‘Wait and come back and marry one of them.’ ” “But you did not wait,” accused Constance. “Nor did you,” he retorted with that swift, ironic eye-flash which she was to know so well later. She welcomed the change to a lighter and more familiar

vein. “How should I know?” she mocked. “You sent no word of your claim. Is Mrs. Scott with you?” “No,” he answered shortly.

Then, in suaver tone:

“It

is more than a year now that I have been out of the world. The East; wild parts of Hindustan and Northern China;

and then the South Seas. I have a boy’s passion for travel,” “But not for your native land. You are an American, aren’t you?” “T have been. And I want to be again. But I shall need help.”