ove-making or talk. I want to be doing things for you, and watching
you when you're not thinking of me. All those safe, careless, intimate
things. And something else--" She stopped. "Dear, I don't want to bother
you. I just want you to know I love you...."

She caught my head in her hands and kissed it, then stood up abruptly.

I looked up at her, a little perplexed.

"Dear heart," said I, "isn't this enough? You're my councillor, my
colleague, my right hand, the secret soul of my life--"

"And I want to darn your socks," she said, smiling back at me.

"You're insatiable."

She smiled "No," she said. "I'm not insatiable, Master. But I'm a woman
in love. And I'm finding out what I want, and what is necessary to
me--and what I can't have. That's all."

"We get a lot."

"We want a lot. You and I are greedy people for the things we like,
Master. It's very evident we've got nearly all we can ever have of one
another--and I'm not satisfied."

"What more is there?

"For you--very little. I wonder. For me--every thing. Yes--everything.
You didn't mean it, Master; you didn't know any more than I did when I
began, but love between a man and a woman is sometimes very one-sided.
Fearfully one-sided! That's all...."

"Don't YOU ever want children?" she said abruptly.

"I suppose I do."

"You don't!"

"I haven't thought of them."

"A man doesn't, perhaps. But I have.... I want them--like hunger.
YOUR children, and home with you. Really, continually you! That's the
trouble.... I can't have 'em, Master, and I can't have you."

She was crying, and through her tears she laughed.

"I'm going to make a scene," she said, "and get this over. I'm so
discontented and miserable; I've got to tell you. It would come between
us if I didn't. I'm in love with you, with everything--with all my
brains. I'll pull through all right. I'll be good, Master, never you
fear. But to-day I'm crying out with all my being. This election--You're
going up; you're going on. In these papers--you're a great big fact.
It's suddenly come home to me. At the back of my mind I've always had
the idea I was going to have you somehow presently for myself--I mean to
have you to go long tramps with, to keep house for, to get meals for,
to watch for of an evening. It's a sort of habitual background to my
thought of you. And it's nonsense--utter nonsense!" She stopped. She was
crying and choking. "And the child, you know--the child!"

I was troubled beyond