Perfectly  aware  that  it  would  have  been  horribly
vulgar  to  abuse  his  old  friend  or  to  tell  his  companion
the  story  of  their  quarrel,  it  yet  vexed  him  that  her
depth  of  reserve  should  give  him  no  opening  and
should  have  the  effect  of  a  magnanimity  greater  even
than  his  own.
He  challenged  himself,  denounced  himself,  asked
himself  if  he  were  in  love  with  her  that  he  should  care
so  much  what  adventures  she  had  had.  He  had  never
for  a  moment  allowed  he  was  in  love  with  her  ;  there
fore  nothing  could  have  surprised  him  more  than  to
discover  he  was  jealous.  What  but  jealousy  could


THE   ALTAR   OF  THE   DEAD

give  a  man  that  sore  contentious  wish  for  the  detail
of  what  would  make  him  suffer  ?  Well  enough  he
knew  indeed  that  he  should  never  have  it  from  the  only
person  who  to-day  could  give  it  to  him.  She  let  him
press  her  with  his  sombre  eyes,  only  smiling  at  him
with  an  exquisite  mercy  and  breathing  equally  little
the  word  that  would  expose  her  secret  and  the  word
that  would  appear  to  deny  his  literal  right  to  bitter
ness.  She  told  nothing,  she  judged  nothing  ;  she
accepted  everything  but  the  possibility  of  her  return
to  the  old  symbols.  Stransom  divined  that  for  her
too  they  had  been  vividly  individual,  had  stood  for
particular  hours  or  particular  attributes — particular
links  in  her  chain.  He  made  it  clear  to  himself,  as
he  believed,  that  his  difficulty  lay  in  the  fact  that  the
very  nature  of  the  plea  for  his  faithless  friend  con
stituted  a  prohibition  ;  that  it  happened  to  have  come
from  her  was  precisely  the  vice  that  attached  to  it.
