He observed her with penetrating eyes. Was this speech of hers innocence
or calculation? He could get no clue to the truth. He saw nothing but
innocence; the teaching of experience warned him to believe in nothing
but guile. He hid his doubt and chagrin behind a mocking smile. "As you
please," said he. "I will do my part. Then--we'll see. . . . Do you care
about anyone else--in _my_ way of loving, I mean?"

It was again the question of an infatuated fool, and put in an
infatuated fool's way. For, if she were a "deep one," how could he hope
to get the truth? But her answer reassured him. "No," she said--her
simple, direct negation that had a convincing power he had never seen
equaled.

"If I ever knew of another man's touching you," he said, "I'd feel like
strangling him." He laughed at himself. "Not that I should strangle him.
That sort of thing isn't done any more. But I'd do something devilish."

"But I haven't promised not to kiss anyone else," she said. "Why should
I? I don't love you."

He looked at her strangely. "But you're going to love me," he said.

She shrank within herself again. She looked at him with uneasy eyes.
"You won't kiss me any more until I tell you that I do love you?" she
asked with the gravity and pathos and helplessness of a child.

"Don't you want to learn to love me?--to learn to love?"

She was silent--a silence that maddened him.