“You need me,” said Pat desperately again. After all…though she knew in her heart he was right…knew he had never been anything but a way out…knew that sometimes at three o’clock of night she had wakened and felt that she was a prisoner…she could not bear to lose him out of her life.

“Yes, I need you…but I can never have you. I’ve known that ever since Hilary Gordon’s visit last summer.”

“David, what nonsense have you got into your head? Hilary has always been like a dear brother to me.”

“He’s twined with the roots of your life, Pat…in some way I can never be. I can’t brook such a rival.”

Pat couldn’t have told what she felt like…on the surface. The whole experience seemed unreal. Had David really told her he couldn’t marry her? But away down under everything she knew she felt free…curiously free. She was almost a little dizzy with the thought of freedom…as if she had drunk some heady, potent wine. Mechanically she began to take his ring off her finger.

“No.” David lifted his hand. “Keep it, Pat…wear it on some other finger. We’ve had a wonderful…friendship. It was only my blindness that I hoped for more. And don’t worry over me. I’ve been offered the head editorship of the Weekly Review. When Suzanne marries I’ll take it.”

So he would go, too, out of her life. Pat never remembered quite how she got home. But Judy was knitting in the kitchen and Pat sat down opposite her rather grimly.

“Judy…I’ve been jilted.”

“Jilted, is it?” Judy said no more. She was suddenly like a watchful terrier.

“Yes…in the most bare-faced manner. David Kirk told me tonight that he wouldn’t marry me”…Pat contrived to give her voice a plaintive twist…“that nothing on earth would induce him to marry me.”

“Oh, oh, ye didn’t be asking him to marry ye, I’m thinking. Did he be giving his rasons?” Judy was still watchful.

“He said I didn’t love him…enough.”

“Oh, oh, and do ye?”

“No,” said Pat in a low tone. “No. I’ve tried, Judy…I’ve tried…but I think I’ve always known. And so have you.”

“I’m not be way av being sorry it’s all off,” said Judy. She went on knitting quietly.

“What will the Binnies say?” said Pat whimsically.

“Oh, oh, I don’t think ye’ve come down to minding what the Binnies say, me jewel.”

“No, I don’t care a rap what they say. But others…oh well, they are used to me by this time. And this is the last of my broken-backed love affairs they’ll ever have to worry over. I’ll never have any more, Judy.”

“Niver do be a long day,” said Judy skeptically. Then she added,