Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/248

 And this was his reservoir of moral strength that he had counted on so confidently! Harrington gazed down at the girl in a kind of sad wonder, properly sorry for her, but sorry also for himself. It seemed as if all the fates of the universe had conspired against him; had woven this net of circumstances about him with only one way out—rough-shod over her heart.

"I had been depending on you to help me, Billie," he managed to stammer in a ragged voice. "I—I needed your proud strength."

Her strength was proud. She showed it by her manner, an utter unresponsiveness to the pathos in this last trembling appeal of his. Her sobbings had ceased. She was investing herself with a kind of lofty reserve. She turned dry eyes to where the sun buried his brazen head in gorgeous clouds and glorified waters. The sense of a fundamental difference in moral perception drove itself between the two of them with the chill and the power of a glacial wedge.