Everyone had a nickname. It was the fashion. It was Saltash who first
called me Juliet. He said I was so tragically in earnest--which was
really not true in those days. And I called him Charles Rex."
She paused, for Dick's arms had tightened about her.
"Go on!" he said, in a low voice. "I suppose he--made love to you, did
he?"
"Everyone did that," she said. "He was just a specimen of the
rest--except that I always somehow knew he had more heart. It was just a
game with us all. It used to frighten me rather at first till--till I got
used to it. When I was quite young I had rather a bitter lesson. I began
to care for a man who I thought was in earnest, and I found he wasn't.
After that, I never needed another. I played the game with the rest.
Sometimes I hurt people, but I didn't care. I always said it was their
fault for being taken in."
"That doesn't sound like you," he said.
"That was me," she returned, with a touch of recklessness, "till I read
that first book of yours--_The Valley of Dry Bones_. That brought me up
short. It shocked me horribly. You cut very deep, Dicky. I'm carrying the
scars still."
He bent without words and set his lips to her forehead, keeping them
there in mute caress while she went on.
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