owing at each other. I have known nothing of this in my life but with
you. There had always been some fear, some constraint, lurking in the
background behind everybody, everybody--except you, my friend."

"An unmannerly, Arcadian state of affairs. I am glad you like it.
Perhaps it's because you were intelligent enough to perceive that I was
not in love with you in any sort of style."

"No, you were always your own self, unwise and reckless and with
something in it kindred to mine, if I may say so without offence."

"You may say anything without offence. But has it never occurred to your
sagacity that I just, simply, loved you?"

"Just--simply," she repeated in a wistful tone.

"You didn't want to trouble your head about it, is that it?"

"My poor head. From your tone one might think you yearned to cut it off.
No, my dear, I have made up my mind not to lose my head."

"You would be astonished to know how little I care for your mind."

"Would I? Come and sit on the couch all the same," she said after a
moment of hesitation. Then, as I did not move at once, she added with
indifference: "You may sit as far away as you like, it's big enough,
goodness knows."

The light was ebbing slowly out of the rotunda and to my bodily eyes she
was beginning to grow shadowy. I sat down on the couch and for a long
time no word passed between us. We made no movement. We did not even
turn towards each other. All I was conscious of was the softness of the
seat which seemed somehow to cause a relaxation of my stern mood, I won't
say against my will but without any will on my part. Another thing I was
conscious of, strangely enough, was the enormous brass bowl for cigarette
ends. Quietly, with the least possible action, Dona Rita moved it to the
other side of her motionless person. Slowly, the fantastic women with
butterflies' wings and the slender-limbed youths with the gorgeous
pinions on their shoulders were vanishing into their black backgrounds
with an effect of silent discretion, leaving us to ourselves.

I felt suddenly extremely exhausted, absolutely overcome with fatigue
since I had moved; as if to sit on that Pompeiian chair had been a task
almost beyond human strength, a sort of labour that must end in collapse.
I fought against it for a moment and then my resistance gave way. Not
all at once but as if yielding to an irresistible pressure (for I was not
conscious of any irresistible attraction) I found myself