rom the Italian grocery downstairs.

He cleared his work table and anchored her in the easy chair at the
same time by putting into her lap the bulky manuscript of _The Dumb
Princess_, and it was this they talked about while he laid the cloth--a
clean towel--and set out his scanty array of dishes. He feared when they
drew up to the table that she was not going to be able to eat at all,
and he was convinced that she was even more in need of food than he. But
the wine, thin and acidulous as it was, helped, and he saw to it that
for a while she had no chance to talk. He told her the story of _The
Dumb Princess_ in detail and dwelt a little upon the half formulated
symbolism of it.

When at last he paused, she said, "I think I know why the princess was
dumb. Because when she tried to speak no one wanted to hear what she had
to say. They insisted on keeping her an image merely, so that they could
go on attributing to her just the thoughts they wished her to think and
just the desires they wanted her to feel. That's the spell that has made
many a woman dumb upon all the essentials."

He gripped his hands together between his knees, leaned a little forward,
drew a steadying breath and said, "There's something I wish you'd do for
me just while we're sitting quietly like this. It has been so momentary,
this life of ours together,--the times I mean when we've been bodily
together. The whole of it could be reckoned quite easily in minutes.
There has been more packed into them, of course, than into many a lover's
months and years, but one effect it has had on me has been to make you,
when you aren't here physically with me, like this, where by merely
reaching out I can touch you, a little--visionary to me. I confuse you
with the Dumb Princess over there whom you made me create. I get
misgivings that you're just a sort of wraith. Well, if you're going away
and we aren't to be within--touching distance of each other again for a
long while--perhaps months, I want more of you, that my memory can hold
on by. The real every-day person that you are instead, as you say, of the
image I've had to make of you. So I wish you'd tell me as nearly as you
can remember everything that you've done--everything that has happened to
you--to-day."

That last word was like the touch of a spur. She shuddered as she cried,
"Not to-day!"

He did not press for a reason and the next moment she went on in her
natural manner again. "That's a strange thing f