Perhaps she would not have been wholly anguished to have me hear this--to be able to assure me tenderly, graciously, of the depth and pureness of her friendship for me.

Who knows?
I am older now, and things once hidden are revealed.

Sometimes I think that a certain new respect for me grew within her as the days tried the metal of my silence--a respect, but nothing more.

Her appreciation of my face was too palpably without those reservations that so often cry louder than words.
So we sealed our secret, she and I, in an unspoken pledge, and not even Solon Denney, so keen of scent for rivals, ever divined it.
He called me out with the old boyish whistle the day he confided to me the tremendous news of his engagement.

He laughed, foolish with joy as he told it, and I felt tingling in my arms that old boyish, brute impulse to slay him for the wretched ease of his victory.