ded.

"Stay it out. I want you to see the fun. I remember--the other time."

She didn't answer for a moment or so, and stood with face averted.

"It's Margaret's show," she said abruptly. "If I see her smiling there
like a queen by your side--! She did--last time. I remember." She caught
at a sob and dashed her hand across her face impatiently. "Jealous fool,
mean and petty, jealous fool!... Good luck, old man, to you! You're
going to win. But I don't want to see the end of it all the same...."

"Good-bye!" said I, clasping her hand as some supporter appeared in the
passage....

I came back to London victorious, and a little flushed and coarse with
victory; and so soon as I could break away I went to Isabel's flat and
found her white and worn, with the stain of secret weeping about her
eyes. I came into the room to her and shut the door.

"You said I'd win," I said, and held out my arms.

She hugged me closely for a moment.

"My dear," I whispered, "it's nothing--without you--nothing!"

We didn't speak for some seconds. Then she slipped from my hold. "Look!"
she said, smiling like winter sunshine. "I've had in all the morning
papers--the pile of them, and you--resounding."

"It's more than I dared hope."

"Or I."

She stood for a moment still smiling bravely, and then she was sobbing
in my arms. "The bigger you are--the more you show," she said--"the more
we are parted. I know, I know--"

I held her close to me, making no answer.

Presently she became still. "Oh, well," she said, and wiped her eyes and
sat down on the little sofa by the fire; and I sat down beside her.

"I didn't know all there was in love," she said, staring at the coals,
"when we went love-making."

I put my arm behind her and took a handful of her dear soft hair in my
hand and kissed it.

"You've done a great thing this time," she said. "Handitch will make
you."

"It opens big chances," I said. "But why are you weeping, dear one?"

"Envy," she said, "and love."

"You're not lonely?"

"I've plenty to do--and lots of people."

"Well?"

"I want you."

"You've got me."

She put her arm about me and kissed me. "I want you," she said, "just as
if I had nothing of you. You don't understand--how a woman wants a man.
I thought once if I just gave myself to you it would be enough. It was
nothing--it was just a step across the threshold. My dear, every moment
you are away I ache for you--ache! I want to be about when it isn't
l