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Rh emphatically was the latter. And again she had sent him away hastily and with no sensible answer.

"Like a little fool!" she told herself with a sniff of self-contempt.

But Joe Embry would come a third time, and then she must tell him one thing or the other. And now she found herself involved in perplexities. She had liked Joe Embry, she still liked him, more than any other man she had ever known. She held to that stubbornly. But Joe Embry as a friend and Joe Embry as a husband were different matters. Why? She didn't understand. But she felt more and more distinctly that for her to give herself to him as the woman gives when she marries was unthinkable. Why, why and why? There was no reason for it; he was of her class, her station, her "sort." And yet a little involuntary shudder went through her when she thought of herself standing at this man's side, pledging herself to him.

"I suppose," she pondered somewhat wearily, "it's just that I don't love him and that love does count, after all."

And she found herself thinking, with reddening, finally flaming cheeks of Bill Steele. He had made love to her too, he in his insufferably impudent way. It was just as though he had told her: "I'm rather busy just now, but when I can get the time for it I'll run in and carry you off with me." From this point, cooling slowly as emotion gave place to speculation, she contrasted the two men. … Both were masterful, each in his way. Yet the mastery of Joe Embry was laid aside in her presence, he called her his dear lady,