transcending promises and contracts, calling for greatness of soul of a
kind I had not hitherto imagined. Was there in me a grain of doubt of my
ability to respond to such a high call? I began to perceive that such a
union as we contemplated involved more obligations than one not opposed
to traditional views of morality. I fortified myself, however,--if
indeed I really needed fortification in a mood prevailingly triumphant
and exalted,--with the thought that this love was different, the real
thing, the love of maturity steeped in the ideals of youth. Here was a
love for which I must be prepared to renounce other things on which I
set a high value; prepared, in case the world, for some reason, should
not look upon us with kindliness. It was curious that such reflections
as these should have been delayed until after the achievement of my
absorbing desire, more curious that they should have followed so closely
on the heels of it. The affair had shifted suddenly from a basis
of adventure, of uncertainty; to one of fact, of commitment; I am
exaggerating my concern in order to define it; I was able to persuade
myself without much difficulty that these little, cloudy currents in
the stream of my joy were due to a natural reaction from the tremendous
strain of the past weeks, mere morbid fancies.

When at length I reached my room at the Club I sat looking out at the
rain falling on the shining pavements under the arc-lights. Though waves
of heat caused by some sudden recollection or impatient longing
still ran through my body, a saner joy of anticipation was succeeding
emotional tumult, and I reflected that Nancy had been right in insisting
that we walk circumspectly in spite of passion. After all, I had
outwitted circumstance, I had gained the prize, I could afford to wait a
little. We should talk it over to-morrow,--no, to-day. The luminous face
of the city hall clock reminded me that midnight was long past....

I awoke with the consciousness of a new joy, suddenly to identify it
with Nancy. She was mine! I kept repeating it as I dressed; summoning
her, not as she had lain in my arms in the darkness--though the
intoxicating sweetness of that pervaded me--but as she had been
before the completeness of her surrender, dainty, surrounded by things
expressing an elusive, uniquely feminine personality. I could afford
to smile at the weather, at the obsidian sky, at the rain still
falling persistently; and yet, as I ate my breakfa