t shook with eagerness, I said, "You
love me. At least you love me a little?"

She drew back.

"You do!" I cried under my breath. "I know it! You do!"

She raised her hands as if to keep me from her, and still retreated
toward the hearth.

"You love me!" I said. The sound of my own voice was raising a madness
within me. "Say it!" I cried. "Say it!"

She turned quickly away from me.

"You love me."

"No," she said. "I do not--love--you!"

I think for a second neither of us stirred; for a second, too, I could
see that her body had relaxed as mine had relaxed. Then I felt the sting
of wrecked pride--the pride from which I suppose I never shall escape. I
can remember that I drew a long breath, made a low bow, which, though
not so intended, must have been both insulting and absurd, and walked
through the curtains into the hall. I looked back once and that fleeting
glance showed me only a beautiful girl who stood very stiffly, like a
soldier saluting, but who, unlike a soldier, stood with closed eyes and
with her long lashes showing against a pale and delicate skin.

How miserable I was in the following hours, I cannot well describe.
After I had returned to my own apartments I sat in my study without
desire for sleep, staring with burning eyes at the silk curtains
fluttering in the June night wind, until they seemed to be ghosts
dancing on my window sills, and my straining ears listened to the hourly
booming of the clock on the Fidelity Tower, until it sounded like the
cruel voice of Time itself. Long after the rosy dawn I got up, drank
some water, lit a strong cigar, and prepared to dress myself for the
day's work. I can well remember my determination never again to expose
my feelings toward any living soul and my constantly repeated assertion
to myself that I had been hasty and indiscreet, that I did not in truth
any longer love Julianna and had been punished for a breach of that
reserve and caution which had been a virtuous characteristic of my
ancestors.

With my teeth shut together, with a frenzy to accomplish much work,
without a breakfast, and with sharp and perhaps ill-tempered commands to
my assistants, I spent the morning in the preparation of cases for which
trials were pending. By noon the heat of the day had become intense, the
sides of the battalions of towering buildings across the narrow street
seemed to become radiators for the viciousness of the summer sun, the
voices of newsboys, the murmur of