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I have. But of course that can't last. The time comes when apartments on Park Avenue and motor cars and pearls look pretty good again, and collegiate devotion grows stale——"

"In other words, Jock Hamill," she concluded, glancing toward him for the first time, "the game has ceased to be worth the candle."

His face lashed her, so stark-white and stricken it was. Even his lips were white.

He spoke slowly. "Then all this—has been nothing to you——"

"But an interlude." Yvonne stood up, actuated by an odd notion that in repose her body could no longer bear its agony. One thought was uppermost: Jock must go, and quickly, before she faltered in this hideous rôle and lost herself . . .

"You might go now, Jock Hamill. I don't think there's anything more for either of us to say."

He did not move.

"Oh, go," she cried wildly. "Can't you understand? I don't want you——"

In a stride he was standing close to her, holding her arms with fingers that bit the flesh, forcing her eyes to lift to his. "Yvonne—do you know what you're doing to me?"

"Perfectly. But you'll get over it."

His laugh was dreadful to hear. "Just like that! Throw everything in the dirt and stamp on it—tear every single goddam thing in the world to pieces in a minute—and then say, 'You'll get over it.' Ha! That's very nearly funny——" His voice broke, and there was suddenly less harshness than tenderness in the clutch of his hands. He had a single instant of clear vision. "Yvonne, you don't mean these things. You can't mean them! You've just got that mad idea